1970 Dayton Daily News M137

[David Bender]

Here's a question, probably for Bob Lemke - why is the Dayton Daily News set considered baseball cards? They are just clipped out of the paper, right?
The Pirate Album series ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1975 - can these be considered cards as well?

Thanks, and I will hang up and take my answer off the air...

[Bob Lemke]

"Back in the day" when the Standard Catalog had two people working full-time, virtually unlimited page counts and the notion of building up a data base for non-card baseball player memorabilia for future catalogs, we routinely sought out this type of item.

Today, not so much.

If the need arises to cut back vintage pages on the print edition in the future, this type of lsiting would be among the first to go onto some sort of rotational publishing basis.

[David Bender]

Thanks Bob.

[Rich Klein]

The Dayton Daily News Items were considered part of the hobby in the mid 1970's. I could have sworn (I've been known to be wrong) that those items were catalogued as early as the 1st Sports Collectors Bible (c. 1975)

The other items; although similiar; were not included and it took for later generations to realize the similiarites.

And yes, Bob is correct; with the drain of manpower at both Krause (F&W) and Beckett, more and more items which may be borderline won't be catalogued and that's a legit issue of the "corporates" running hobby publications. Hobby people figured if you broke even and kept adding to data bases you were fine; corporates want the profit wherever they can. Neither side is wrong, but in a sense the hobby loses when option #2 is the one that is chosen.

Rich

[Bob Lemke]

When I joined Krause Publications in 1974, the company was run by two genuine coin collectors (Chet Krause and Cliff Mishler). While they did what was necessary to keep the lights on and maintain some modest growth, they also realized the value of investing in periodicals and, especially, reference catalogs that would assist the long-term growth of the hobby.

While some book titles and periodicals were home run right out of the gate, others were a drain on cash for many years but were subsidized "for the good of the hobby."

When non-collectors got control of the company the emphasis swtiched to polishing up the bottom line to attract the next higher-buyer.

I guess that's the way of the (business) world.

[paul]

I think one reason they were originally catalogued as cards is because they say "card" right on them. Kind of silly, but I would bet that was a huge factor for the writers of the Sports Collectors Bible and whoever else catalogued these.