1949 Topps Pixie Bubble Gum X-Ray Round-Up Advertising Poster

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Today, we present a 1949 Pixie Bubble Gum X-Ray Round-Up Advertising Poster from Topps’ early days.

I scanned this image from Mastro’s June 2006 Classic Collector Auction. Since it was an internet-only auction event, none of the items in the catalog included a description. I presume there were descriptions online, but their site has long been deleted.

The Modern Hobby Guide To Topps Chewing Gum: 1938 to 1956 includes a few words about the gum and card set within a discussion about 1949 being the year of many cards:

With the tempered success of Magic Photo giving way to the realization that the lifespan of a top selling set was about six months, Topps came out with a new gum tab called Pixie in the summer of 1949. The cards sold with this gum were called X -Ray Round -Up, as Topps continued to identify the gum and cards separately. Featuring well drawn, vivid color renderings of a series of subjects such as Pirates and Wild West stars on one side, a piece of “X-Ray film” was needed to see the line drawing on the other. Made of red cellophane, the film cancelled out red lines on the back of the card thereby revealing the X-Ray. A piece of X-Ray film was included along with each card. The set was actually marketed featuring the X-Ray pictures as the primary component as Topps slowly learned the business of “inserts”.

Interestingly, some of the illustrations of Indians in the set were closely based on old tobacco cards that had been issued in the 19th Century. The portraits on these cards, which were a quantum leap forward from the simplistic drawings that comprised Tatoo, were probably illustrated by the art agency of Solomon & Gelman.

The guide also offers a multi-page set synopsis; it’s free to download here.

Hake’s Auctions sold one of these poster signs for $275 in 2009, describing it as 20.5 ” x 26″.

Frank Nagy’s Signed 1933 Goudey Mel Ott Card

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I ran across this super cool signed 1933 Goudey Mel Ott card in Mastro’s March 2006 Classic Collector Auction catalog. Why so cool? It was part of Frank Nagy’s collection!

Unfortunately, it got reholdered without the Nagy designation before PWCC sold it for $2,212 in August 2019.

Given how hot on-card autos are getting these days, that price looks like a steal for a Pop 2 card.

Early 1950’s P-F Canvas Shoes Advertising Sign Featuring Musial, Doerr, Campy, Lemon, and Rizzuto

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Here’s an awesome advertisement, scanned from a June 2005 auction catalog for B.F. Goodrich P-F Canvas Shoes featuing a slew of MLB legends.

A few years later, in 2013, Lelands sold a framed copy of the awesome stadium-designed cardboard ad, mentioning that it measures 19” x 25”. They also highlighted the inclusion of Sam Jethroe as an early African American promotion—that copy sold for $640.

If you look around, you’ll find several variations dating later into the ’50s that include legends like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays. However, if you want them in your collections, they’ll cost you many thousands of dollars. Luckily, they all feature floating heads!

Pete Rose & Bart Giamatti Signed 1983 All-Star Game First Day Cover

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How’s this for rare and historically significant: a Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti signed 1983 All-Star Game First-Day Cover?!

If you weren’t aware:

Giamatti served as Commissioner for only five months before dying suddenly of a heart attack. He is the shortest-tenured baseball commissioner in the sport’s history and the only holder of the office not to preside over a full Major League Baseball season. Giamatti’s most notable act as Commissioner was to negotiate the agreement resolving the Pete Rose betting scandal in which Rose was permitted to voluntarily withdraw from the sport to avoid further punishment.

Wikipedia

This first-day cover was a part of Mastro’s March 2006 Classic Collector Auction.

1939 Babe Ruth Signed Advertising Contract

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Here’s an incredible advertising contract featuring the full-name signature of “George H Babe Ruth.”

The fully executed agreement was signed by a representative of the National Broadcasting Company in March 1939, and states the final terms for what I guess was the severing of the relationship that had provided for Ruth’s endorsement on behalf of Red Rock Bottlers, Inc.

You can see that the EX/MT document came with a PSA/DNA certification. It was auctioned off in December 2004.

An R327 Diamond Star Wrapper Hoard

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You’d think wrappers from the 1930’s would be super scarce and super pricey. You got the pricey part right, but they’re more common than you’d think; Mastro offered this lot of 11 together in July 1998.

Mastro wrote that it was the largest group ever made available at one time. A few months earlier, in March, they sold a single wrapper for just under $500. They described the wrappers as having a few wrinkles, but none were less than Ex to Mt condition.

They also explained that this blue and red variety was rarer than the yellow version, most likely because the blue wrapper was only used for Diamond Star’s high-number series. That said, 1) I’m not a pre-war expert, 2) I’ve read in a few vintage publications that at least eight different wrapper variations from this set were used between 1934 and 1936, and 3) Memory Lane Inc. has sold two lots of Diamond Star wrappers, which leads me to believe the Mastro lot may be dated to 1935 and that there are ten wrapper variations.

Memory Lane Inc., which has sold a lot of rare wrapper runs over the years, described this first lot of eight as being from 1934-35, with the blue wrappers with red stars described as 1935 variations.

The second lot was for four different “1936 Diamond Star Baseball Wrappers with 2 Candian Versions.” Notice the star is orange on these wrappers.

If you have more insight into these collectibles, leave a comment!

1952-1955 Red Man Tobacco Find of 768 Cards

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REA, then a division of MastroNetInc., offered this massive find of 768 1952-55 Red Man Tobacco cards (760 with tabs) in their July 2000 Baseball Cards and Memorabilia auction. The same auction included a lot of 1971 Milk Duds Giant Assortment of 661 Unassembled Complete Boxes.

They described the lot as the biggest group of Red Man Tobacco cards they had ever seen. It included four 1952 complete sets, six 1953 sets, four 1954 sets, and one 1955 set missing two cards (#AL15 and #AL18). 25% were Nr/Mt to Nr-Mt-Mt, 30% ranged from Ex to Ex-Mt, 35% were Vg to Vg-Ex/Ex, and 10% were lesser.

Here’s the auction catalog cover if you want to own a cheap piece of hobby history.