Dynamite Magazine Panels

[deweyinthehall]

As almost everyone who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s will recall, the Scholastic publishing company blanketed elementary schools around the country each year with catalogs of books - it was an event those in my school (Highland Elementary, Cheshire, CT) looked forward to each year.

From 1974 through 1992, a key feature of Scholastic's offerings was Dynamite Magazine (first cover shown here). Each issue contained a number of recurring features (Bummers, Count Morbida's puzzles, Good News/Bad News, an advice column, craft ideas, etc.) along with feature stories on pop cultural figures from Fonzie to Kristy McNichol and from MTV to Ricky Schroeder.

In just their second issue in April of 1974, they included an article on Topps baseball cards featuring an interview with Sy Berger.

Also included, stapled into the spine, was a small sheet of 1974 Topps cards. Mostly these were 6-card sheets, but some 3-card varieties slipped in as well.

The very first cards I ever owned were from such a panel from 1978 - it was the year I first subscribed, and I received a panel like the one shown here with Darrell Porter, Al Oliver and 2 each of Tony Perez and Cecil Cooper.

Over the years, the Standard Catalog listed a panel or two from some years, but it was always woefully incomplete (probably because no record was ever kept).

I recently became obsessed with tracking down as many varieties as I could for each year and in posts that follow I will posted the results of my efforts.

Dynamite included the cards from 1974 through 1984, but all the posts will be here in the 1980 and earlier page.

A few general notes:

1) Because Topps' sheets were contained 12 rows, the top card(s) on every Dynamite panel were always from the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th row. However, because they were 11 columns wide, this set up a situation which, if an entire sheet would be cut for this purpose, at least one strip of a single column was needed.
2) There is little consistency to how the sheets were cut - the same sheet could be cut once with column 1 as the single strip, and cut again with column 7 as the single strip. Also, there are 6-card panels where the left column of cards might appear as the right column on another panel.
3) I searched Worthpoint and eBay for my research. I do not know Dynamite's circulation figures, but relatively few issues exist out there in the open. Within that universe, some years seem far more plentiful than others making me thing their circulation numbers changed over the years.

[deweyinthehall]

Issue 2, featuring the Walton family on the cover, is dated April, 1974. This is the issue which contains the article on Topps (1952 high numbers worth $10 each?? An old Honus Wagner for $1,500?!?!?).

The 1974 set was issued in 5 sheets, anchored by Rader, Mitterwald, Lis, Braun and Phillips in the upper left corners. Of these, panels from the Lis (9 panels), Braun (6) and Phillips (5) are known.

Some lucky kids got second-year Schmidts, but Yaz and Marichal were also possibilities (parenthetical numbers, i.e. 'x3', indicates where I found multiples of a given panel):


Lis Sheet:

Fife (top)
McAuliffe (middle)
Braves Team (bottom)

Pattin (top left)
Fife (top right)
Marquez (middle left)
McAuliffe (middle right)
Siebert (lower left)
Braves team (lower right)
(x2)

Houk
Expos Team
Lockwood
Carbo
Wohlford
J. Niekro

Davalillo
Cruz
Hodges
Watt
Arnold
Broberg

Arlin
Granger
Decker
Aker
Tolan
White Sox Team

Alvarado
Ragland
McMullen
Chaney
McCraw
LaGrow

Garber
Hough
Foster
Bevacqua
Hiser
John

Borbon
Baker
Beauchamp
Hutton
Stennett
Lange

Lovitto
Goltz
McGlothlin
Wright
Hamilton
Bane


Braun Sheet:

Timmermann
King
R. Smith

Chambliss
Rojas
Watson

Schmidt
Alomar
Checklist 265-396

Perry
Pena
Coggins

Rietz
Mathews
Davis
Fuentes
Williams
Marichal

Yastrzemski
Kirby
Muser
Melendez
Orta
Gullett



Phillips Sheet:

Torres
Downing
Hopkins
Beniquez
D. Campbell
Aspromonte

Parsons
Moret
Terrell
Herrmann
Harmon
Jeter

Rettenmund
Brinkman
Spinks
Monzon
Garrett
Sanchez

Culver
Murtaugh
Hand
Stanley
Checklist 397-528
Dyer

McCarver
D. Johnson
Yeager
Harrah
Walker
Day

[ALR-bishop]

Looking forward to this Dewey. Up until 1994 one of my collecting parameters was everything and anything listed in the Standard Catalog for Topps. For some reason Lemke did include Dynamite panels for some years. I have ended up with all the panels listed in the Catalog save one, supposedly from 1977.

I was aware from searching for it that the Catalog does not list all the possible panels, but have never expanded my parameters to collect them all. I would however like to find my missing one if it exists. The 2011 Catalog listed 2 panels for 1977, the one I am looking for says it had Henderson/Medich/Johnstone/Geronimo/Brett/Bumbry

Looking forward to your 1977 list

[toppcat]

Nice job by Topps making sure there were checklists. Shades of the Win-A-Card game!

[deweyinthehall]

The April, 1975 edition of Dynamite (Issue 10), was truly Dy-No-MITE! (Sorry), featuring Jimmie JJ Walker on the cover.

The 1975 set was produced on 5 sheets, anchored by Alou, Giusti, Bando, Washington and Taveras. Panels are know to exist from all sheets except Washington.

From the Alou Sheet:

Garrett
Ferguson
Orioles Team
Giants Team
Angels Team
Royals Team

Renko
Moret
Horton
Correll
Koosman
Rader

70 MVP
68 MVP
66 MVP
67 MVP
69 MVP
51 MVP

Hooton
Corbin
Hrabosky
Stone
Cleveland
Mayberry

Mason
Bahnsen
Bonham
Fisk
Carlton
Dierker

Grich
John
Locklear
Lopes
Beene
Melton

Segui
Murphy
Forsch
Reed
Reuss
Valentine


From the Giusti Sheet:

Geronimo
Marsall HL
Cabell
Rietz
Coleman
Padres Team

Aaron HL
Geronimo
LaRoche
Cabell
Grote
Coleman

LaGrow
Miller
Porter
Hough
Hall
Torrez

Buckner
No-Hitter HL
Wohlford
Griffin
Jones
Ray
(x2)

Johnson
Gibson
Tidrow
Reynolds
Holtzman
Champion

Thompson
55 MVP
Cash
60 MVP
Merritt
59 MVP

Dobson
Robinson
Hendrick
Singleton
Hernandez
Fingers


Taveras Sheet:

Stanley
Hood
Hansen

Heise
Rau
Fairly

Rose
Harrelson
Bailey


Bando Sheet:

Wallace
Dettore
Robinson

Wilson
Frisella
Fosse

[deweyinthehall]

Incidentally, I have images of perhaps 80% of these panels in case anyone has any requests.

[postwarcards]

Awesome! I look forward to reading more; I have 16 Dynamite/Hot Dog magazines with panels, and I'm still looking to track down the rest.

I also have a few questions you might answer along the way. For example, does Hot Dog 9, with Miss Piggy on the cover, have 1981 Topps baseball cards in it? And I'm unsure about Dynamite 127. Are there cards like the cover says? If so, what are they?

Again, really looking forward to following this thread!!!