Broders, Dan Even and the Helmar Rabbit Hole

[tpeichel]

Hi,
I joined the site recently so I thought I would introduce myself. I had heard of Net54 from time to time, but my focus has always been oddball cards for superstars of the 80s, so I never pulled the trigger to register here.

I started selling oddball cards in the early 1990s, magazine inserts, pins, buttons, magnets, variations, test issues, food issues and unlicensed cards. By far the most frequently sold were the unlicensed issues, so in the early 2000s I started a quest to try and catalogue all of the unlicensed issues. At first in Access and then about ten years ago a website (supercollector catalog).

From time to time I had heard of a Broder book with checklists for all of the sets, but I never found one, until a few days ago. It is in the mail as I write. The author was Dan Even, which eventually led me here, where I unfortunately learned of his recent passing. I would have loved to pick his brain about the story around the whole "Broder" saga.

Love them or hate them, "Broders" have made an impact on the industry. It seems like the same arguments that were bandied about during the 1990s over unlicensed issues have resurfaced with the advent of "custom" cards like the Helmars. I spent quite a while reading through several threads discussing the new Helmars on these boards. Very interesting. I did a search on eBay for them, and as a novice, I really had no idea what was new and what was old. My two cents is they should be dated to easily identify what they are, especially because they are aged to make them look vintage. Beautiful cards though, I see why collectors like them.

One set I really wanted to discuss with Dan was a sample Broder set from 1989. It took elements from the earlier Action Superstars sets and the later 1991 Play Ball sets. They arrived in a big lot of cards I purchase and were the only "Broder" with a MLB logo on the front. My theory is this was a test run of some sort in preparation for creating the 1991 Play Ball set. I have only seen a few over the years. There are four Griffeys, three Mattinglys and two Kevin Mitchells.

http://www.supercollectorcatalog.com...logo-test.html

I have continued searching but have never been able to find any other players and they have not popped up on eBay for years. If you know of any others, please let me know!

Interestingly, prices for Broders have been going up over the years as supply has dried up. I used to pick up sets for $1-2, no more. $5, $10 or $20 are more common prices now, while the 1987 Broder Play Ball Japan is $40-$50! (I took a look at it recently and it has five out of the eight players in the Japanese league 500 HR club: Oh, Kiyohara, Ochiai, Kinugasa, Kadota. Not sure if that has anything to do with the price jump though. In all likelihood it is the interest in Sadaharu Oh as someone on eBay is trying to get $300 for a graded version.) Anyways, I believe that was the only Japanese set Rob Broder created.

I do have a good vintage story from the best trade I ever made with my piano teacher in 1983, but that is for another thread.

Tim Peichel