Hostess Baseball Cards

[darkhorse9]

That looks to be the Cupcakes run. You'll notice there's very little border between the cards. Those also have much different printing on the back. The stats are printed a lot smaller than the Twinkies versions.

I'm not 100 percent sure what product the ones over #135 were issued in. 1-60 were Twinkies. The Snowballs seem to be skip numbered.

[steve B]

And for really tough ones there's these.



I traded for a small batch of them back around 1981. 74 McCovey Washinton And maybe a couple other cards for the whole bunch.

The stupidly traded half of them for another McCovey Washington.

So there's around 10 of them out there plus my 10. I've never seen any others and haven't seen them listed anywhere.

Pretty interesting, along with the different colors most are screened more coarsely, and there are a few reversed negatives. And numbers over 150 - which seem to match the list for proofs in the Standard catalog.

Steve B

[esquiresports]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

That looks to be the Cupcakes run. You'll notice there's very little border between the cards. Those also have much different printing on the back. The stats are printed a lot smaller than the Twinkies versions.

I'm not 100 percent sure what product the ones over #135 were issued in. 1-60 were Twinkies. The Snowballs seem to be skip numbered.

Ok. That makes sense. Found a photo of the backs:



Here is a 1977 Twinkie card I have that I believe has never been catalogued - Dave Parker.

[David W]

Here is an example of the differences in the Twinkies in 1975. There may be others in 75 as well as other years.

[LDFerg]

I picked up a nice 76 and 79 set a few weeks ago. I have cut a few to get a feel for the grading. My grades have resulted in. 8s, 9s, and 10s.

[Jayworld]

Originally Posted by LDFerg

I picked up a nice 76 and 79 set a few weeks ago. I have cut a few to get a feel for the grading. My grades have resulted in. 8s, 9s, and 10s.

That's very cool. So when you cut them, do you cut exactly on the dotted line (thus leaving a slight line residual), outside the line, or inside the line? I've seen all forms of cutting these cards, and when I used to trade with friends in the 1970s, I was pretty picky about how the cards were cut out, as I did not want ragged edge cards, etc.

[toppcat]

I've been researching old issues of The Trader Speaks for my next book project and found this interesting article form the July 1975 issue. It is a neat read and has some some insights on distribution/alternate products: