1958 Sport Fan Who's Who Directory of Collectors

[trdcrdkid]

From 1955 to 1960, Bob Jaspersen, editor-publisher of Sport Fan, published an annual directory of sports collectors, called the Sport Fan Who's Who. People would send in their name, address, age, occupation, collecting interests, and any other relevant information (including the estimated value of their collection), and Jaspersen made an alphabetical listing, supplemented with lots of ads. I have the 1958 and 1959 editions, and below I've scanned all the directory pages from the 1958 edition. (These are only about half the pages in the volume, the rest being ads.) The entries in the 1959 edition are significantly shorter, I guess because Jaspersen began cracking down on the length, so that edition's directory is about 2/3 the length of this one. It does include some people that are not in this one, like Lee Allen and John D. Wagner, so maybe I'll scan it too another time.

I find this kind of stuff interesting, not only to see what these people were interested in collecting, but their occupations and ages. There are some names here that are pretty well known even today, like Lionel Carter; others that I see all the time in hobby publications of the 1950s and 1960s, as writers and/or dealers; and some that, I gather, are still active today, like Jeff Morey and Bob Thing.

[talkinbaseball]

David,

You are right, if you want to visit Bob Thing, he usually sets up at the Boston show at the Shriners in the spring and fall.

John-

[Beansballcardblog]

I love seeing things like this on Net54. With the change in the hobby since I began collecting, I have recently found myself wishing for the days of old. I feel ya that time, collecting was more pure.

That being said, I've found that in th onstage area.

-kin

[brass_rat]

Thanks for posting these, David. They are always enjoyable to read.

A few of my favorites from this document:

• Lionel Carter spends more words specifying what he doesn't collect than what he does...and that his favorites are T207 Lowdermilk and T206 Plank.
  
• Walter Corson was selling his collection (due to illness...he would pass away in 1966), which included "over 1,000 complete gum and tobacco card sets".
  
• I wonder where Wirt Gammon's T206 Wagner is now.
  http://haulsofshame.com/blog/?p=25287
  
• Karl Wingler's comments about the 1866 book American Pastimes were great.
  https://archive.org/details/bookofamericanpa00peve
  
• Bruce Foster owned ten of the Harry Wright scrapbooks.

Cheers,
Steve