1951 Wheaties Premiums

[Zach Wheat]

Guys,

This side of the board has been too quiet lately and motions have been made to invite Adrian back - with the caveat that he can only post on this board.

I was doing some additional fact checking, etc. and came across information I thought might be useful. The inclusion of Betty Schalow, the lone non-baseball player in the set seemed a little odd and I assumed there must be a connection. It appears that Schalow was a popular skater in the early '50's with the Ice Follies. The Ice Follies was a new ice skating production that toured the US, featuring, in part, a solo skating routine of the single Ms. Schalow. At the time, the Ice Follies were competing for business with the Ice Capades. I came across an auction for one of her Wheaties Premium cards. The auction description indicated that the cards were "salesman's samples" as explained by the seller. The seller of the card, coincidentally, was a salesman from General Mills.

Although information on Schalow was not easy to come by, the Ice Follies annual programs included quite a bit of information on her. She was covered fairly extensively in the newspapers in cities where she performed. An article indicated she was born in St. Paul, MN. Coincidentally, this is close to General Mills headquarters, presumed issuer of the set.

I think this kind of brings us full circle. There seems to be too much evidence affirming the set was issued by General Mills, not only due to the inclusion of Schalow, but that this card was part of a salesman sample of cards for General Mills; further, these cards were either produced over several years or at least some of them post-Oct. 1952. I think more than likely the set was issued later than 1952.


Z Wheat