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[toppcat]

Originally Posted by laughlinfan

Hey Dave!

Would love to get the wrapper mystery solved. From the ad it appears that Bob sold mint sets made from the leftovers, but in my many years of collecting, I have never seen anyone sell a complete mint 75 card set. They must be out there somewhere. Over the past 20 years or so, I have probably been able to get about 10 assorted small lots of the 1978 cards, and they always were assorted lots, with some of the cards showing telltale wax pack residue. I have a shipping box with about 60 or 70 of the cards from the last time I got a lot of these - I will check to see about how many had wax residue. Maybe I can estimate how many were in a pack!

Interesting, I've always thought the 70's was a fairly well-documented era due to the expansion of hobby press but the more you look at things, the more it's obvious it is not! Has there been a geographic focus to where they come from?

[laughlinfan]

I agree - 1978 is certainly not the dark ages for collecting - seems we know a ton of stuff about even obscure issues from the late 70s on. We never had Good Humor trucks or ice cream treats in my neck of the woods where I grew up (Western NY). I am under the assumption that these were centered in the tri-state area (NY,NJ,PA), and it seems like for many years, whenever I picked up a few of these, they would invariably be from one of those states. And just to add to the confusion, I just looked up on the Good Humor website and found this nugget -

"1976

Good Humor sold its fleet of vehicles in 1976 to focus on selling in grocery stores. Some of the trucks were purchased by ice cream distributors and others were sold to individuals. The trucks sold for $1,000 - $3,000 each."

Of course that would be two years before these were issued. Baffling.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by laughlinfan

I agree - 1978 is certainly not the dark ages for collecting - seems we know a ton of stuff about even obscure issues from the late 70s on. We never had Good Humor trucks or ice cream treats in my neck of the woods where I grew up (Western NY). I am under the assumption that these were centered in the tri-state area (NY,NJ,PA), and it seems like for many years, whenever I picked up a few of these, they would invariably be from one of those states. And just to add to the confusion, I just looked up on the Good Humor website and found this nugget -

"1976

Good Humor sold its fleet of vehicles in 1976 to focus on selling in grocery stores. Some of the trucks were purchased by ice cream distributors and others were sold to individuals. The trucks sold for $1,000 - $3,000 each."

Of course that would be two years before these were issued. Baffling.

Good Humor had the smaller trucks where the freezer doors were in 2 or 3 spots on the body and the driver had to reach in and fish around for your ice cream treat. Then went to more of a step van style with a wide open window area at some point that was much more like a store on wheels. We had both but mostly the latter in the 70's but Colonial Maid was the big operation by me (Nassau County, Long Island) and I always bought Topps packs and confections from them in the early 70's and they usually had a pretty good selection of baseball and non-sports. Football too later in the year, can't recall Hockey or Basketball on Colonial Maid though. It's weird though that this can't be tracked.

UPDATE-After I posted this I found a Wikipedia citation (and another one elsewhere from a different source) that said the fleet was sold in '78 (Jones, Geoffrey (2005). Renewing Unilever:Transformation and Tradition.) Maybe they sold the trucks and the promotion was cancelled?

FURTHER UPDATE 9/21/79 Baltimore Sun article seems more on point than prior citations. Half the fleet sold n'78, NY Metro area trucks vanished, etc. Interesting read for those of us of a certain age no matter how you feel about the WS cards:

[laughlinfan]

Good info, Dave! Seems like this set may have come along at just right time to become a victim of a changing business model, which might help explain the low circulation. From Bob's ad, he mentions a limited promotion - makes it sound like it wasn't just a case where they were sold through the trucks. Would seem like if it was a promotion where folks had to buy something to get a pack, collectors would remember it. Heaven knows I have vivid memories of every cereal, bread, pastry, pop-tart, pop-sicle, banana, wiffle ball, Sugar Daddy, lunch bag, ice cream sundae, gas station, and restaurant I had to eat or patronize to pull in some kind of sports treasure in the 70s!

[laughlinfan]

Progressive transparency proof sheet set of 4 (CMYB) of the fronts for the new cards for 1978 (with a nice sharp image of the 1977 proof!)

[laughlinfan]

from the scanner!

[laughlinfan]

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