Being originally from North Jersey, I have always had a special place for baseball ephemera from my home state. When I was a kid my grandfather used to tell me about how he and his pals used to sneak into Jersey City Giants and Newark Bears games. Being the top farm clubs for the New York giants and Yankees respectively, my grandpa would list off all the great players he was able to see before they became stars in the majors. Once I found my first Jersey City Giants scorecard, I was hooked.
He's a run of scorecards from 1941 (the first year the team added graphics to the cover, through 1950 when they left town for good. (I had a '46 but sold it a while back). These come up every so often on ebay, but here's a chance to see the bulk of the run in one place.
I especially like the 1944 edition, with the graphic at the bottom of soldiers and sailors gathered around radios listening to baseball back home. The '45 one is nice as well with the cool "JC" logo prominently displayed. But I think I like the 1941 the best, it just has a wonderful look about it that today's baseball graphics sorely lack.
Collectors might note that these look very close to the big league Giants scorecards of the same year, and that is because the Harry Stevens Company, which did all the New York teams scorecards also did Jersey City's.
These guys are currently up individually on ebay ending Sunday night.
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