Quote:
Originally Posted by sthoemke
Just came across this.
The same wrestling/boxing sets, shown as revised for 1961, which could mean the sets were published for at least 6 years.
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Now that is interesting, but I doubt that the Clay card is from 1961. Here's a post on the issue from last year:
My guess has always been the Exhibit card is from around 1962-1963. The image they used looks like it is from a photo session that produced one of Ali's promos:
The very first Clay promo photo session took place in December 1960 in Miami. Here is a photo using that image, from 1963:
It is clearly earlier than the ESCO image. Now, here is a publicity photo from The Thrilla in Manila:
The first image is the same as the Exhibit image. They used that to illustrate the young man. The second image was used in the packet for the first Frazier fight but dates to the latter part of the 1960s.
Here is a rare ca. 1967 card of Ali:
From the extension of the Kid Herman set. I've also seen a lot of photos from a 1962 Stanley Weston session that look similar to the image but are of a younger man. So we are narrowing the window down to pre-forced retirement but post 1962. My guess is 1963 since Clay was decimating the ranks and becoming a top contender. Of course, we would need catalogs to pin it down.
Here's an uncut sheet:
Willie Pastrano won a title in 1963. As did Joey Giardello. It also has Patterson, Johansson and Liston. All were relevant in the division 1962-early 1963. Ingo was done in April 1963. He'd not have been in an ESCO issue debuting in 1964; one thing they did well was weed out retired athletes.