Hobby supplies history

[sirraffles]

No, not that one. I'll see if I have one somewhere that I can scan. The one you pictured came out a long time after. I can't remember who made it. Around '88 there was an explosion of new molded holders, it was hard for even me to keep track and that was my business. Every day seemed to bring in a package from a new player with holder samples. I remember one that continuously beeped "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". It wouldn't stop, it kept going and going until I nearly lost my mind and threw it to the ground. There was this long pause and then it started beeping again.

The Taiwan pages that I brought in didn't have a brand name. I had found a manufacturer and had basically sent him a MVP sheet (Command Plastics, Ohio) to knock off. I wanted to see what the first batch actually looked like before I would commit to putting my company name on them. Boy, they sure were frozen solid. I smacked one brick against the wall and the whole thing just exploded into shards! Over the years I had tried to interest other plastic converters domestically to make sheets. None would. I sure didn't want to get into manufacturing but in '86 or '87 I bought a couple specialty machines to do so.

The supply business was dog-eat-dog, really quite vicious. I'm sure many of us remember when the first rigid holders made it into the country. Some guy from NJ had them. He charged $250 for a case of 1000, no discounts. He wouldn't even take my call so I bought a load from Taiwan. They could only supply 100 cases and the price was 125.00ppd a case. I sold out the first day. By 1992 things were upside down and there was a huge glut nationally. I remember buying full containers of 1.2 million holders at 2.2 cents each, then having to flip them for as low as 2.3 cents each. It was a stupid time, but that was what the market was.