1921 Haffner Bread Distribution

[nolemmings]

Thought I would share some info I found that I do not believe has been covered here, related to the 1921 Haffner’s Bread cards.

The cards were distributed by Haffner’s Star Bakery of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The bakery held a contest, with prizes distributed in the end to the kids who turned in the most player and manager cards with no duplicates. They were wrapped one per loaf, and although the card backs promote the company’s Big Tayto Loaf Bread, many of the newspaper ads stated the cards could also be found in their loaves of Hol-Tayto and American Maid Bread. The first ad claimed that $50.00 in various baseball gear would be awarded, but the following day’s ad promised $75.00 of such gear-- baseballs, bats, gloves and masks. A total of 43 prizes were to be awarded–they were displayed in the bakery’s Show Window throughout the promotion for the kids to see.

Here is a bullet point summary about the bakery's advertising– I will attach scans of some ads in a later post:

• The cards were first available on August 29, 1921, with the initial ad in the preceding day’s paper.

• On October 8, the bakery ad announced “The Big Baseball Prize contest will end in about two weeks”. Yet on October 22 the ad said that the “Baseball Star Campaign” was still going. Maybe the earlier ad was designed to drum up sales as kids raced to the finish line. Although the bakery advertised in the same paper throughout November, none of those ads I saw mentioned the baseball cards. In any event, the contest ended by December 1st, 1921, and the ad from that day told kids to bring in their holdings by December 3rd, after which prizes would be awarded on December 10. The ad on December 10 reaffirmed that prizes would be handed out then, and that all cards would be returned to those who submitted them, whether or not they won anything.
  
  On a few occasions the newspaper had a blurb to announce a specific card would be appearing.

• Babe Ruth was available only one day from September 13-16, although I assume he could be found in day-old loaves.

• Ty Cobb was to be available the following week of September 19, although it’s unclear whether he too was a one day only card.

• Tris Speaker was available the following week of September 26, although again it is not clear whether he was a one day only card.

• There was a special contest for cards of John McGraw, with a prize issued on Saturday October 8, 1921 for whoever presented the most cards depicting him. The extra contest was announced in that Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday’s papers.

• Kid Gleason was not available until October 15, and perhaps only that day. On October 9, Haffner’s newspaper ads claimed that each day beginning Monday of next week, it would give a bat or ball to the boy who brought in the most pictures of the player in that day’s loaves, saying “Please note that each day will have a separate picture”. The prize was given at 5:30 p.m.

• Fred Williams’ card was inserted in loaves sold October 20, 1921.

• An ad on September 30 promised a free card the following day to “every boy” who visited the bakery, with no mention of whether every boy received the same or different players.

• Oddly, the ad on October 1, 1921 says that ‘We find that Nebraska has some enthusiastic Baseball Fans too” working on the contest. That’s a long way from Indiana.

Unfortunately, it was not stated anywhere how many different cards were available, so these ads do not tell us the set size--even though the first ad tells boys to save the pictures until they get a complete set. Still, we now have a distribution date to compare with other related sets using the E121 and W575 photos and captions.

[nolemmings]

Some of the ads:

[Leon]

Great, great work, Todd. Thank you.
.

[mrreality68]

Excellent work agreed

Now we have to find those cards

Dibbs on the Ruth

[nolemmings]

Needless to say not mine:

[brianp-beme]

Great research Todd. The fact that these cards were distributed regionally, coupled with the knowledge we now have that a contest was involved that encouraged kids to send in cards, makes it fairly obvious why they are so difficult to come by. It reminds me of the scarce E123 Curtis Ireland cards and their contest.

Here is a scruffy Charles Hollacher, my lone 'Big-Tayto-Loaf' example.

Brian

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Needless to say not mine:

It’s a nice looking one and with the “Babe” in quotes

[kmac32]

Excellent research. My Great Great uncle Elmer Miller is in the E121 set so makes me wonder if there is a Haffners of him out there.

[Baseball Rarities]

Great info. Thanks for sharing that Todd.

[oldjudge]

Great job Todd! So Ruth was only available for one day in the Ft Wayne Indiana area. Pretty amazing.

[nolemmings]

Thanks guys. Brian, thanks for the scan— I hope others will post theirs here too. The pop reports show cards for 79 different subjects, and I have scans of each (most from Heritage) to confirm. I also have some scans from ungraded cards, but none of anyone not already in the pop reports–the checklist for which follows. Incidentally, I note that both SGC and PSA incorrectly attribute this set to 1922.

Any additions to the following list would be appreciated– please provide supporting front/back scans. Ken, sorry, but no Elmer Miller sightings so far.

ALEXANDER, GROVER
BAGBY, JIM
BAKER, J. FRANKLIN
BANCROFT, DAVE
BODIE, PING
BURNS, GEORGE
BUSH, OWEN
CAREY, MAX
COBB, TY
COLLINS, EDDIE

DAUBERT, JAKE
DAUSS, GEORGE
DEAL, CHARLES
DOAK, BILL
DONOVAN, BILL
EVERS, JOHNNY
FABER, URBAN
GARDNER, W.L.
GLEASON, "KID"
GOWDY, HANK

GRANEY, JACK
GRIFFITH, TOM
GROH, HEINIE
HEILMANN, HARRY
HOLKE, WALTER
HOLLACHER, CHARLIE
HOOPER, HARRY
HORNSBY, ROGERS
JACOBSON, WM. C.
JENNINGS, HUGHIE

JOHNSON, WALTER
JOHNSTON, JAMES
JUDGE, JOE
KELLY, GEORGE
KERR, DICK
KILDUFF, P.J.
KILLEFER, BILL
LAVAN, JOHN
LEIBOLD, “NEMO”
MAMAUX, AL

MARANVILLE, “RABBIT”
MAYS, CARL
MCGRAW, JOHN
MCINNIS, STUFFY
MILAN, CLYDE
MILLER, OTTO
MORTON, GUY
MYERS, “HY”
O'NEILL, STEVE
PECKINBAUGH, ROGER

PFEFFER, JEFF
PIPP, WALTER
RICE, E.C.
RIXEY, JR., EPPA
ROUSH, ED.
RUTH, “BABE”
SCHALK, RAY
SCHANG, WALTER
SCHUPP, FERD
SCOTT, EVERETT

SEVEREID, HANK
SISLER, GEORGE
SPEAKER, TRIS
STOCK, MILTON
STRUNK, AMOS
TERRY, ZEB
THOMAS, CHESTER
TONEY, FRED
TYLER, GEORGE
VAUGHN, JIM

VEACH, BOB
VITT, OSCAR
WAMBSGANSS, W.
WHEAT, ZACH
WHITTED, GEORGE
WILLIAMS, FRED
WINGO, IVY
WOOD, JOE
YOUNG, “PEP”

[DaveW]

Great job on the research! I love this kind of stuff. So how many of each card do you think were printed? The population of Fort Wayne was about 86,000 in 1920.
I wonder how many loaves of bread this one bakery was selling each day? Probably not enough, which is why they ran a contest to try to increase their sales. I’d guess maybe 500 - 1000 loaves a day?

[terjung]

Excellent work, Todd! Thank you for sharing that!

I was following the recent Haffner's lots in HA (since I was/am interested in the Sisler) and thought they went strong. Congrats to whomever won them.

[ValKehl]

Fantastic and fascinating research, Todd! The 79 Haffner's Bread cards that very recently surfaced in the hobby and were auctioned by Heritage were both bad news and good news to me.

Bad news in that a WaJo card is one of these 79 cards. This meant my raw example of this card (pictured below), which has been in my collection for many years, is no longer a 1-of-1 card, much to my chagrin.

Good news in that a previously unknown Sam Rice card is one of these 79 cards, as I am working on a master set of Rice's cards. Heritage included this Rice card in its auction lot of 72 Haffner's cards, which I had hoped would be won by a dealer who would break up this lot and sell the cards individually. However, I have heard this lot was won by a collector. If this collector is a Net54 member, or if anyone knows how to contact this collector, kindly PM or email me at ekehl333@aol.com. Thanks in advance.

[nolemmings]

Thought I'd give this one last push to the front page, to see if there are other Haffner's out there (great card, Val) and to perhaps inspire folks to research the other related sets from 1920-21, such as Clark's Bread and Gassler's.

I wonder how many loaves of bread this one bakery was selling each day? Probably not enough, which is why they ran a contest to try to increase their sales. I’d guess maybe 500 - 1000 loaves a day?

Interesting question David. My guess would be in that range.

It is possible that Ruth, Cobb et al were available more than just one day–that they were randomly inserted for a period of time at the beginning and then the bakery decided to spark sales by making them “for sure” available on a certain date(s). Somewhat strange to me is that the populations of these cards are not noticeably greater for players featured on a particular day, especially the McGraw, who was the subject of a contest within a contest, so to speak. If in fact the bakery made only one player available per day as of mid-October, you would think those subjects would be more plentiful than the rest, yet pop reports top out at 3 for Cobb and Speaker, with a large majority showing only one example and very few with two. Three is hardly a glut.

Also interesting is that the set may be complete at 80; if so, the mystery remains--who is the one unreported card? I note that Holsum Type 1 and Holsum Type 2 also have just under 80 confirmed subjects. Perhaps the non-American Caramel sets stuck to the plan as originally stated?

Finally, here is one of the early ads (all from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette), claiming that kids could find a card of Bill Wambsganss, who went to college there:

Imagine their disappointment when learning that the card does not depict Wamby, who unsurprisingly was not a left-handed middle infielder, but instead Fritz Coumbe, not even with Cleveland at the time:

[Jobu]

Great research and thread! I guess we know that the bakery manager tossed the cards that were returned otherwise there might be a few more out there.

[Leon]

This thread deserves a friendly bump.
These are from my previous collection...

[tiger8mush]

Hi Todd, great investigative work, thanks for sharing your efforts!

edit - just realized you said Haffner and I'm posting a Holsum, so removing my scan

[frankbmd]

How can a whole grain bread be too grainy?