OT: Who Determined That Mantle's Rookie Card was the 52 Topps

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by rats60

Yet, I wouldn't have been able to collect them despite living in the 4th largest city in the USA. That is why the hobby, for the last 40 years, has required a card be issued nationally for it to be a "rookie card."

I doubt if you would have seen these BOND BREAD (BB) cards while living in Houston in 1947. It is my understanding that the 1947 BB cards were inserted in the BB packages
that were shipped as far West as St Louis and as far East as Boston. BB had 50 bakeries located in 18 States in the late 1940's. I don't think the employees at these bakeries
were discretely stuffing cards into the bread packages as a function of the ballplayer's team. Not at the rate of 1.5 Million loaves of bread per day.....certainly not. These cards
were stuffed into packages randomly. And yes, wherever you resided, you could get a Berra, Hodges, Kiner, Musial, JRobby, Thomson, or any other subject in this 48-card set.

These cards were my very first Baseball cards which I collected in my youth in 1947. In the past 40 years (since I have been collecting as an adult), I have compared notes with
other collectors (who also collected them as kids) from various parts of this country, and their experiences were similar to mine.

Therefore, if you want to continue thinking that these cards were not a "nationally" distributed set, that's you prerogative. However, I know different from actual experience.









TED Z

T206 Reference
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