Trading New Rarities for Old Ones!

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I have been working on reconstructing the two 24-card sheets of the 1947-48 Elgee perforated dual sided 48 card set. I am looking for all cards, including duplicates and those not in the best condition. The slight impression of an adjoining card will help me match pictures together, while better condition cards will upgrade my set. Each sheet has 22 cards with pictures printed on both the front and back. The remaining two cards of each sheet have only one picture on one side with the other side being half of the printed description of the set. Combined the two backs are:



As the scan shows, the backs read together as "46 / TRADING CARDS / ASSOCIATED SUBJECTS / SPORTS . HOLLYWOOD . COWBOYS / AN ELGEE PRODUCT No. 4575." The "46" subjects refers to the number of pictures on each sheet, and not to the number of cards in the set.

These Elgee cards are often misdescribed as 1947 Bond Bread perforated dual-sided cards because some, but not all, of the sports photos are the same in both the Bond Bread and Elgee sets. Neither Bond Bread, nor Elgee, had the exclusive license to use these wire photo pictures. In fact there are more than 20 different sets of the era from a variety of companies that used some or all of the pictures used by both Elgee and Bond Bread.

Obviously, most would have the Elgee baseball player and boxer cards identified as “1947 Bond Bread perforated dual-sided cards,” rather than as “AN ELGEE PRODUCT.” The Elgee set includes Hollywood Stars, whose pictures come from studio photo publicity portraits with the Star identified by name. The Elgee set also includes many Cowboy “action” shots, and while these are from publicity stills from Western movies, the names of the Cowboys and the films are not printed on the cards. Many cards only picture Hollywood Stars and Cowboys. Since these cards are not readily identifiable, many probably are just set aside in a pile of cards to figure out later. These cards are especially important to me. I can find scans of the baseball and boxer cards, but these others often don't seem important enough to anyone to picture. I'll trade for these and any of the sports cards in any condition until the sheets are reconstructed. Below is an example of a typical Hollywood Star / Cowboy card from the Elgee set (this one with Katherine Hepburn / Cowboys (Leonard Penn & Hopalong Cassidy).



The reason for dating the set as 1947-1948 is I have been able to identify and date many of the Cowboy action shots printed on the cards to actual scenes from Westerns released in 1946 and 1947, but at least three of those pictured are specifically from the movie, "Red River," released in 1948.

We all know of the millions of 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes cards hand-cut from Macaroni & Cheese boxes. The boxes were all like cereal boxes with a white face and a blank “grey back.” Few know that Kraft also produced a factory-cut promotional set on solid white cardstock. Less than 20 sets of this factory “white-back” issue exist. Below is a scan of the factory set printed as a small set on white cardstock verses the larger sheet of 24 boxes, each printed with two cards. I apologize for the quality of the scans. Only one uncut sheet of the factory set is known, it appeared about 15 years ago and is folded, and that's the best scan I could get from its owner.



In 1988, a man and his son came to my table at a baseball card show looking for rookie cards. He pulled out of his pocket a set of Kraft 1987 cards to trade. I told him the cards were everywhere. He said he was the Kraft representative responsible to distribute these special sets to store managers to get their support of Kraft's baseball promotion, and that he didn't give them out because the “Mac & Cheese” boxes with cards sold themselves. He said that when the baseball promotion ended, he asked his manager what to do with them and was told “to look to future promotions and not the past,” and to throw them away, which he did except for a few he kept. No one had heard of a Kraft factory set. I asked him how many he had and that was about a dozen or so. Ultimately, I obtained all he had. Since then, two other sets have surfaced, both from the estate of a man who worked for Major League Baseball's licensing division in the 1980s. Those two sets have been broken up for singles. For further distinction between the “white-back” and “grey-back” sets, the scan below compares the Kirby Puckett cards.



Many of the sets I acquired also have been broken up. If anyone is interest in trading for any of the cards from this modern rarity, send me a private message through net54baseball. I have been selling the “white-backs” (those printed on solid white cardstock) on eBay at the following prices to give you a relative idea of value:

#1 Eddie Murray (35.00)
#2 Dale Murphy (75.00)
#3 Cal Ripken (75.00)
#4 Mike Scott (20.00)
#5 Jim Rice (50.00)
#6 Jody Davis (20.00)
#7 Wade Boggs (100.00)
#8 Ryne Sandberg (100.00)
#9 Wally Joyner (25.00)
#10 Eric Davis (20.00)
#11 Ozzie Guillen (25.00)
#12 Tony Pena (20.00)
#13 Harold Baines (35.00)
#14 Johnny Ray (20.00)
#15 Joe Carter (35.00)
#16 Ozzie Smith (50.00)
#17 Cory Snyder (25.00)
#18 Vince Coleman (20.00)
#19 Kirk Gibson (25.00)
#20 Steve Garvey (75.00)
#21 George Brett (100.00)
#22 John Tudor (20.00)
#23 Robin Yount (75.00)
#24 Von Hayes (20.00)
#25 Kent Hrbek (20.00)
#26 Darryl Strawberry (35.00)
#27 Kirby Puckett (200.00)
#28 Ron Darling (20.00)
#29 Don Mattingly (250.00)
#30 Mike Schmidt (75.00)
#31 Rickey Henderson (150.00)
#32 Fernando Valenzuela (50.00)
#33 Dave Winfield (50.00)
#34 Pete Rose (75.00)
#35 Jose Canseco (75.00)
#36 Glenn Davis (20.00)
#37 Alvin Davis (20.00)
#38 Steve Sax (35.00)
#39 Pete Incaviglia (20.00)
#40 Jeff Reardon (20.00)
#41Jesse Barfield (50.00)
#42 Hubie Brooks (20.00)
#43 George Bell (75.00)
#44 Tony Gwynn (125.00)
#45 Roger Clemens (75.00)
#46 Chili Davis (20.00)
#47 Mike Witt (20.00)
#48 Nolan Ryan (125.00)

Here's a picture of the factory sets as made: machine cut to uniform size, banded, then sealed in shrink-wrap.




Thanks, Mike


Original work Copyright 2020 by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521. No claim to the original work of others. Your fair comment and criticism are welcomed.