Let’s rehash the Bond Bread controversy.

[Johnphotoman]

Report number 5: Festberg Discovery part one.
From my point of view, the original thread by Ted Z is out of date, and full of
misleading statements. To get to the misleading statements about the
Festberg find, we need to look at some statements made about Bond
Bread in general, and look at the differences between statements made
between Bond Bread and the Festberg find.

As I have said I think we can disqualify certain sets in the old Ted Z thread,
that were called “Festberg” cards, by going over statements made about
cards that were posted there. More on this further down this post. Get
ready butchiet t, this will involve you.

Quotes from Ted Z page 1: Quote #1: “It was the Summer of '47....my
sister and I carefully opened up Homogenized Bond Bread
packages, for a Joe DiMaggio, a Ted Williams,a Stan
Musial, or the new rookie sensation....a Jackie Robinson BB card.”

Quote #2: “These B/W cards were really popular with the kids in our
neighborhood. By trading & sharing our collections with each other, we
eventually realized that there were no more than 44 BB players and 4
Boxers in a complete set”.

Quote #3: “The only true 1947 Bond Bread cards are these 48 in this
general set and the Jackie Robinson set. All of which have beveled (or
ROUNDED) corners in order to fit into the bread loaf packages.
Unfortunately, other issues that resemble the Bond Bread cards that were
issued after 1947 and were never packaged in Bond Bread loafs
have been mis-identified as "1947 Bond Bread" cards. Grading Co. have
been most guilty of erroneously labeling these SQUARE "imposters".
(Emphasis mine - as Bond Bread cards).

Then he goes on to say: “Shown here are two cards from the 1949
(unknown) issue (see below) which includes 24 of the BB players depicted
in the 1947 Bond Bread issue and an additional BB player (or 2). Also,
many of the popular Movie Stars of that era were included. These cards
may have been printed by the same firm that printed the 1947 set.
However, their SQUARE corners and their inferior cardboard stock belie
the fact that these cards are NOT related to the "1947 Bond Bread" issue.
A recent find of many of these SQUARE cards (BB and Movie Stars)
suggest a 1949 issue date since Walker Cooper is depicted in this
col-lection as a NY Giant (Cooper was traded to Cinci in the Summer of
'49).”

Those statements above by Ted Z set the stage for the controversy we
have today. Right from the start.

My conclusion and re-cape: Ok, not bad Ted had first hand knowledge; he
collected Bond Bread cards right from loaves of Bond Bread. Look at what
Ted said: “there were no more than 44 BB players and 4 Boxers in a
complete set”. Making up 48 cards in all.

Ted also mentioned what he called a 1949 unknown issue, consistent of 24
of the BB players depicted in the 1947 Bond Bread issue and an additional
BB player (or 2). Also, many of the popular Movie Stars of that era were
included. How did he know how many cards were in the unknown set, why
not list them at this time? Also, notice how he explains the set; The 1947
set did not have any movie stars in it. Now get this, the 1949 set had an
additional BB player or 2, who were these players; why not name them?
Then there were also cards in the form of popular movie stars of the era.
Great, how many? And why not tell us how many cards in all - in this
so-called 1949 set? Why not give names at this time. I do not like the fact
that at a later time in the post these facts seem to be given.

Ted then said, "The 1949 unknown issue may have been printed by the
same firm that printed the 1947 set. They were printed with square corners
on inferior cardboard stock, and are not related to the 1947 Bond Bread
issue."

Ok stay with me, he goes on to say, “A recent find of many of these
SQUARE cards (BB and Movie Stars) suggest a 1949 issue date since
Walker Cooper is depicted in this collection as a NY Giant (Cooper was
traded to Cinci in the Summer of '49).”

Question, does a recent find of square cards, suggests the find happened
in 2009; Since this thread has a date of Mar 2009? Does this imply a recent
find to be say 2000. I wished he gave the date and not said it was recent.
Also notice about this unknown set it is from 1949. It is an unknown set,
but somehow it is given a date for when it was issued. Oh. we did get an
answer as to why the set was given an issued date of 1949…
It has to do with Walker Cooper, I will get to that. Ted said the set consisted
of 24 of the BB players depicted in the 1947 Bond Bread issue and an
additional BB player (or 2). Also, many of the popular Movie Stars of that
era were included. All good information to have. Just wished he was a little
clearer on the facts.

Pay attention… It is not called the Festberg find, and in fact there is no
mention of the 1980 Festberg find at this time. I do have to ask the question
would a find in 1980 (the Festberg find) be called recent in 2009, some 29
years later.

For now- since there was no mention of the Festberg find, just the unknown
set, suggest there were two different finds, a 1980s find we call “Festberg”
and an unknown set from 1949, found in recent years. Maybe sometime in
2000.

Let’s look at the facts and see if we can figure out these two sets of BB
card finds. Can we separate the two into different groups, or are they both
the same? It does look like Ted was describing one set, an unknown set
and according to him - it was a recent find from the time he posted his
thread, Mar 2009.

Again I have to ask what does recent mean? 5 years, 10 years- ok go as
far as 15 years maybe, but not over 20 years. It does not make sense to
say something is recent that happened over 29 years ago. Simple logic
would say the unknown set of cards were printed before the summer of
1949.

This simple logic implies that the cards were printed 1947-1948. Why would
I say 1947-1948? If Walker Cooper was depicted in this collection as a NY
Giant by the time of 1949 he would have been traded. A 1949 issue does
not make any sense to me...how can one conclude someone was traded in
summer to Cinci, in 1949 but the photo shows Cooper in a NY Giants
uniform, simple logic would say the BB card was made before 1949. Yes,
Cooper played for the New York Giants baseball team from 1946–1949, but
by the time the season of 1949 Cooper was in was in a Cinci uniform.

Ted was right, the two card sets are unrelated. Meaning they were not
made by Bond Bread, but they do have a connection. What did Ted say?
“The 1949 unknown issue may have been printed by the same firm that
printed the 1947 set.” He got that part right. The two sets were printed by
the Arrco Playing Card company.

Let go over it one more time, Bond Bread did not print their own cards. As
Exhibitman points out in thread #82 of this thread - “Bond Bread didn't
make any of these cards, Aarco did. Bond Bread licensed them from Aarco,
as is apparent from the many cards, picture packs and photos made from
the same images.” And it is a point I have made from the beginning.
One more point, I have always believed that the Collectors & Traders -
Sport Star subject cards had cut cornered edges. Look at the boxes, it sure
does look like the cards have beveled corners. Thet do not look uniform
like round corner cards do.

Now let's have another look at those boxes of Collectors & Traders - Sport
Star subject cards without the first card showing in them.
-called unknown set was printed around the same time as the Bond Bread
cards. We do know that the squared corned cards were issued in boxed sets sometime around 1947-1949. These box sets are what Ted called the unknown set. No mystery here…they were the Sports Star Subjects and Screen Star Subjects printed by the Aarco company 1947-1949.

I need to point out that Aarco was printing BB cards and the like in 1947
known as Sports Star Subjects and Screen Star Subjects, before they
printed any Bond Bread cards as - “Collectors & Traders - Sport Star
subject”

Notice the 2 boxes with 12 cards in each.
Aarco made 4 boxes with 12 cards in each... that comes to 48 cards, the same number as the:Bond Bread” set, no coincidence, Aarco just produced the same cards for Bond bread.

Do you notice anything different about them? The boxes were die cut with
windows in them to show the first card, the windows are die cut / beveled or
you can say rounded. This tells us the Collectors & Traders - Sport Star
subject cards had square or rectangle edges…they were not round at all.
I propose or should say the facts tell us that the unknown square cornered
cards that Ted was telling us about…are in fact the squared cornered
Collectors & Traders - Sport Star subject cards from 1947-1949.

These would mean that all rounded and die cut cards (beveled) edge cards
all belong to cards that were inserted in Bond Bread. But wait, we were told
there was a difference in the rounded and beveled edge cards. I was in this
camp, I did believe that “only the rounded corner cards were the only ones
that were inserted in the loaves of bread. I believed that’s how we could tell
which cards were Bond Bread. I believed that beveled cards belong to
Collectors & Traders - Sport Star subject cards.

Ted's own card post in the very first page of his thread proves that he had
indeed collected right form loves of bread, cards with rounded edges and
beveled edges. See example below. Some look rounded and others look
to be beveled (die-cut).

I explained how die-cut cards have different looking edges as the run goes
on, wear and tear. No one cut them with a pair of scissors, they are no
fakes. Just by the sheer number of die cut cards, no one could produce
that many fakes. Fakes are made for profit - cutting the ends off of the
Sports Star cards would not make you enough profit to go through the effort
to make fake cards, One has to buy cards and then cut them, then try and
resell them at a profit. I am not saying someone has not tried - but there are
way more bigger fish to fry them than wasting your time with small
potatoes. Yes there could be cards out there with scissors edges - but I
don't know how anybody could tell.

I want to make a point about a couple of statements made in the Standard
catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, 4th Edition. - From the Bond Bread
category it says…“At some point after the original Bond Bread issue, half of
the cards were reprinted in a squared corner, 2 ¼ x3 ½ size on a slightly
different stock for purposes unknown.”

(Half the cards would mean 24 cards). Where did that information come
from? Did you know that Ted Zanidakis( Ted Z) made contributions to the
catalog. It would be nice to see where that statement came from, meaning
who was the person that contributed that part to the Bond Bread category.
Under the Bond Bond category it also says- “A large quantity of these 24
cards was found in a New York warehouse in the 1980s.”
Now I believe that is wrong, everything I have read says the 1980 find was
found in New Jersey. Notice this find was not called the Festberg. It just
says a large quantity of these 24 cards were found in a warehouse in New
York. We have to ask, is this a different find or is it the Festberg find?

In the same paragraph it reads- “To complicate the situation, the squared
Corner cards were illegally counterfeited sometime after 2000, often sold in
the high graded slabs by fraudulent grading companies.
Could these cards found after 2000 be the ones Ted called recent? “A
recent find of many of these SQUARE cards (BB and Movie Stars) suggest
a 1949 issue date.” Certainly since Ted post was Mar. 2009, a 2000 card
find would be considered recent to 2009.

Also, if the 2000 cards were illegally counterfeited, and sold by grading
companies, this could explain why I have seen so many forgeries that are
definitely counterfeits in slabs from grading companies.
Up next - Report number 5: Festberg Discovery part two. John

The Images: Photo #1 the two cards from the unknown issue. #2 Notice 2 boxes with 12 cards in each. #3 4 boxes showing the die cut boxes. #4 Show the cards in Ted collection from the first page, notice the corners of the cards they are not all the same.