1971 Dell laminated - Who? When? Why?

[laughlinfan]

So - probably picked up a couple of sets (of 24 All Stars) 25 or more years ago. They weren't expensive, but I really liked them, since I think I had picked up most of the Dell stamp booklets back in 71. Very nice photos were used in this set, so this makes them easy to flip through to look at and read. I think I may have seen some of the team sets also given this treatment. So my questions - who would have undertaken the effort to go through the books, neatly cut these into singles, expertly and uniformly laminate them, and then distribute them? I don't believe these would have been done by Dell back in the day - my guess is someone got a bunch of the books and did this (maybe in the early 80s?), but at the prices that I purchased them at, no one was making a lot of money on them. Was this a labor of love? A foreshadowing of the encapsulating craze to come?

Anyone out there have any info or speculation?

Happy collecting!

[bnorth]

I remember laminating cards was a big thing back in the mid/late 80's. It was supposed to keep your mint cards mint.

I remember thinking about doing it with my "GOOD" cards at the time. I just couldn't see spending the money on laminating when I could spend it on more cards. Still feel that way about putting cards into plastic.

[Mark70Z]

Originally Posted by laughlinfan

So - probably picked up a couple of sets (of 24 All Stars) 25 or more years ago. They weren't expensive, but I really liked them, since I think I had picked up most of the Dell stamp booklets back in 71. Very nice photos were used in this set, so this makes them easy to flip through to look at and read. I think I may have seen some of the team sets also given this treatment. So my questions - who would have undertaken the effort to go through the books, neatly cut these into singles, expertly and uniformly laminate them, and then distribute them? I don't believe these would have been done by Dell back in the day - my guess is someone got a bunch of the books and did this (maybe in the early 80s?), but at the prices that I purchased them at, no one was making a lot of money on them. Was this a labor of love? A foreshadowing of the encapsulating craze to come?

Anyone out there have any info or speculation?

Happy collecting!

I always wondered the same thing; the laminated Dell is a tad bit weird to me. I only have ONE card in my collection that’s laminated and it’s the Brooksie pictured above. Why this particular issue?