Vintage cards of Negro league players?

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Posted By: David

Pardon my ignorance, but were there ever any cards produced of Negro league players during their careers, (not including former Negro league players pictured in major league uniforms)? I'm guessing not, but just wondered if anyone knew for sure. I know there were some cards produced in modern sets. Obviously there were photos taken during that period, but were any cards produced from them at the time?

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Posted By: Kenny Cole

There are Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and Venezuelan cards of some Negro Leaguers, including HOFers Oscar Charleston, Pop Lloyd, Pete Hill, Biz Mackey, Leon Day, Hilton Smith, Willard Brown, Raymond Brown, Andy Cooper, Martin Dihigo, Cristobal Torriente, Jose Mendez and Ray Dandridge. Buck O'Neill has a couple of cards as well. To my knowledge, no American cards of Negro Leaguers were produced while the Negro Leagues were still in existence.

Kenny Cole

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Posted By: Matt Goebel

The Billikens never cease to amaze me!

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Posted By: David

I know we don't want to bring up modern day sets on this board, but my original question above brought to mind the Sporting News Conlon Collection cards produced in the 80's and early 90's. I'm a big fan of that set - great old photos, bios and stats of many obscure players. I was just wondering to myself if Charles Conlon ever ventured into Negro League ballparks and if there are any Conlon photos around of Negro League players. I don't recall any Negro Leaguers in the card set.

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Posted By: dd

For modern day sets, the Ted Williams Card Company issued tribute cards of Negro League stars.

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Posted By: David McDonald

Matt: Aha! "Ghost" Marcelle! Now I get it.

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Posted By: Jeff Lowe

I live right down the street from where the original Darby-Hilldales played I would love to see more cards like that . Thanks .




Jeff Lowe

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Posted By: Chris Counts

I realize this is cheating, but I couldn't resist posting these 1940 Play Ball cards I created in Photoshop ...

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

There are lots of cards of Negro League players issued during their careers. Just like with any set, the superstars cost way more than the more common players. You can probably get a vg common player for about $25.

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Posted By: David

I was looking on Ebay for Negro League cards and came across a listing for Helmar Brewing cards. They look like T206s.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

What year were they made?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

The Helmar Brewing cards are awesome.

They're being manufactured NOW, and inserted in small packs of four cards in a bag of potato chips. I think they are distributed in the midwest, primarily. Their company spokesperson is a former Negro League player - his name escapes me.

You can find these easily on Ebay. The potato chip bags feature reproductions of vintage baseball art of guys like Babe Ruth and Christy Mathewson. Same with their beer packaging, and the bottlecaps are also collectible with player images.

The cards are of prewar baseball players, Negro Leaguers, Japanese league players, and boxers. They keep adding to the set, issuing more and more cards over time. They're designed like T206s, and the cards are SUPER thick, purposely to keep them from being slabbed or stored in toploaders, as the manufacturer feels that the cards are meant to be handled and abused. You'd love them, Gil.

-Al

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Abuse? Al, I am all about finesse and gentleness.

But they do look nice. Thick is good. I like the heftiness of the Old Judges, and these could be more so. There are some Negro League players which I want that apparently haven't been produced yet. I certainly welcome the issuance of new Negro League cards. Sometimes any card will do.

Actually, I have no idea about relatively recent NL issues. The recent issues section of the guide is so intimidating and filled with I don't know what - but it takes up a lot of room, and seems confusing.

Anyone know the set names and years of Negro League cards manufactured since 1990?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

No, you wouldn't love them because of the abuse, you'd love them because the manufacturers hate slabs.

These are SUPER thick. Thickest cards I've ever seen, thicker than cabinet cards. If you stick one in a toploader, it bows out the middle. You've got to keep them raw, they don't really even sit right in binder pages.


As far as real, in-period NL cards go, I only have one, a Ray Brown from the Carmelo Deportivo set (Ryan Christoff could tell you more about these in thirty seconds than I could tell you over the course of the rest of my life), issued in the late 40s, very thin stock, quite cool.

-Al

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I only have a half a dozen and need an equal amount (of ones that do exist). My initial foray into this is to collect a card of each ex-NLer who made it to MLB. Most of these players are represented by Topps or Bowman cards, but not all. Has been interesting, and will be more so once I try to figure out why some didn't seem to get a real chance eventhough they appear to have done well. And others did eventho they faltered at first.

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Posted By: Chad

Ahem.


Here's a Denia Marvin Williams and an Aguilitas Oscar Levis. Williams is probably the greatest unknown slugger of all time and Levis one of the best forgotten pitchers.


These guys aren't bad. The greatest Cuban player of all time and a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame but he spent his prime years playing on integrated teams in the Dakotas so the Negro League Committee overlooked him. The Torriente is an Aguilitas Segundas and the Trouppe is a Toleteros from Puerto Rico.


George Scales! Jeff Kent before Jeff Kent was Jeff Kent. A Toleteros from 1950-51 and another Toleteros In Action featuring HOFer Willard Brown and the great and scary badass Vic Harris.


The end of the Negro Leagues created a diaspora of black ball players. The card on the left is a Japanese bromide featuring Jimmy Newberry, one of the first two black players to sign with the Japanese League. And that's Parnell Woods showing up in Oakland to play for the Oaks.


Rufus Lewis was a hell of a player and he has no card, but did manage to weasel his way into this card sized Trinidad y Hno booklet. And that's Tinti Molina from the awesome Billiken set. He played in the early days of the Negro Leagues but, more importantly, he put together the greatest Cuban, maybe the greatest team of all time, together--the Santa Clara Leopardos. It was as if the '27 Yankees has set up shop in Salinas, California.


In the Havana jersey is Isidoro Leon. Just a really cool card from the colorful cuban Victoria set. On the right from the tough tough tough tough Punch set from 1910 is Alfredo Cabrera, one of the early Cubans to play in America against mostly black teams.


That's just a sampling. Yeah, I like this stuff...

--Chad

Oh yeah, sorry for the crappy scans. These cards look even better when I'm not screwing up the scans.

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Posted By: Cat

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Posted By: Matt Goebel

Many of the Hilldale greats from the 1920's had cards issued in Cuba including:

Nip Winters
Biz Mackey
Frank Warfield
Clint Thomas
Red Ryan
Rube Currie
John Henry Lloyd
Dick Lundy
Martin DiHigo

I can send you scans of any you want, or you can see images on Ryan's website.

Can you tell me if there is any historical marker at the site of the old ballpark?