1962 JELL-O Baseball Card Distribution

[keepmeposted]

Hi, Brian and Dave.

Great to hear from you. As you gentlemen know, the 1962 JELL-O baseball promotion has been frustrating me for decades. As my "fluff" article will demonstrate, I have exploited virtually every avenue available to get a morsel of data on the planning, allocation scheme, printing, and distribution of the set. The JELLO museum curator in Leroy, NY, American JELL-O collector's club, Philip Morris/Kraft/General Foods/JELL-O corporate masters, Young and Rubicam (advertising agency), photographer (Art Shay), Dover, Delaware production facility, and surviving Post art department architects, have absolutely no information to offer. The only thing my relentless search has done is offer laughter to those contacted, and a casual "Let me know what you find out" salutation.

One thing that is particularly intriguing is the fact that the General Foods (including Post and JELL-O) art department contacts have no recollection of exchanging any 1962 photos, text, or copy art with either the Leroy,NY or Canadian subsidiary of Post headquarters. In an interview with Art Shay, he went on record to say he never received any compensation for use of photos taken for the 1962 Canadian or JELL-O baseball card sets.

While living in Southern California, I frequented a card shop owned by Jeff Goldstein. The store was named the Shortstop Sports Stop, located off Washington Blvd in Culver City. I would get into heavy conversations about the Post cereal with Jeff. If my memory serves correctly, he was prominent in the early hobby days in the Detroit environs as a game used uniform expert. He also told me he had been in the printing business. Where I'm going with this, is he told me the 1962P Canadian had been printed in the Great Lakes area based on the higher quality printing processes in the United States. Then, the sheets (boxes?) were shipped to the North. I wonder -- Is it possible that General Foods struck a deal with Midwest connections to orchestrate both the 1962P Canadian and 1962J "test" promotions?

There is no question that the 1962P Canadian baseball promotion was far more robust than the 1962J baseball "test". I'm just wondering if somebody in Chicago or Kalamazoo is sitting on some information that can be mined. At best, I figure we have less than 5 years to find a living human being who was tangentially involved in either promotion.

As a get-off-the-stage comment, I was sent a 3x5 color photo of a 1962 JELL-O paste-up/copy art board in 1997. It was a board depicting about 100 copy art frames, devoid of player color photos and some of the text copy missing. The item was very hard to see, in part because the photo was taken in a backyard and the sunlight glare bleached a lot of the detail. The item showed the cardboard poster board cover, similar to the 1963 Post and 1963 JELL-O copy art auctioned by Lelands in 2002. I never saw the 1962J copy art offered in the hobby, and regrettably, it is the only glossy photo I cannot find in my research and archive library. If I could have read or examined the front cover, it would have identified the location, stock number, and copy art preparation agent. I'll bet it's still out there somewhere ... hopefully not being used as an oil drip board in a garage in Davenport. [BIG SMILE!]

[toppcat]

Well if it's Great Lakes printers you are after, I would look at Strecher-Traung Lithographers of Rochester, NY. I suspect they did overflow work for Topps in the 1960's and it would not surprise me if they printed cards for other firms.

I would have to check but the laws in Canada may have allowed US items to be shipped in and sold in Canada if "manufactured" in Canada until about 1970. The product may have been all that required manufacturing, not the box.

There are rumors of 1954-55 Topps hockey sheets being shipped to OPC in London, Ontario via Detroit so I daresay anything is possible.

[quitcrab]

Not jello. But a pretty cool Post piece

[quitcrab]