A Curious Item – The “Original Artwork” For Darrell Johnson’s 1957 Topps Baseball Card

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I ran across an item in Ron Oser Enterprises’ December 2000 catalog that perplexes me. It was described as a 3 1/2” x 5 1/2” flexichrome artwork for Darrell Johnson’s 1957 Topps card, but I always thought flexi’s were used to color black and white images.

I reached out to The Topps Archives, and he pointed out that flexi’s can look different but also thought they were only used to color black-and-white images. He also wondered if Topps just cut out the image with an Xacto knife as it would have already been in color. He pointed out that it sort of looks like an alternate for Johnson’s 1958 Topps card, which has a slightly different pose.

Any ideas? Did Topps have other plans for the 1957 Topps set? Were they going to use the cutout for another set?

Three 1914 Boston Garter Cards – Baker, Konetchy, and Johnson

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Richard Wolffers Auctions, Inc. offered three 1914 Boston Garter cards in their June 1993 auction and included these color photos of the Frank “Home Run” Baker and Walter Johnson cards.

The third card they included was #10 Ed Konetchy. Here are the B&W photos and lot descriptions for all three cards.

If you want to know more about the set, here’s how The Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards describes it:

The second of what are presumed to have been three annual issues by the George Frost Co., Boston, contains 12 cards. The colorful lithograph fronts have a player picture in front of a ballpark diagram. A large Boston-brand garter appears at the bottom. Baseball with the Boston Garter name appear in each upper corner. Black-and-white backs have a checklist for the set, career statistics for the player pictured and details of the cards’ availability. Retailers received one card per box of dozen garters and could write to the company to complete the set. About 4’’ x 8-1/4’’, they were intended to be displayed in shop windows.

A complete set of 12 would be nearly impossible to piece together today and would probably cost more than $1M. SGC has graded only 43 examples, while PSA has graded only two. 

Unopened Case Clearance Specials In 1979

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In “I wish I owned a time machine,” hobby history is this advertisement from the December 1979 issue of The Trader Speaks for “sealed gum cases at the lowest prices ever seen!” And yup, that would be from Mike Cramer’s Pacific Trading Cards.

I shared this image on the Facebook “Vintage Wax and Packs” group, which led to some entertaining comments.

One person said he’d take an infinite amount of 1977-78 Topps Basketball; I agreed since I’ve only ever seen one photo of a wax case.

Another collector asked himself why he hadn’t bought a case for $25, responding that it was about $151 in today’s dollars.

There were a lot of comments about Mike Cramer, who owned the company. By the way, if you have any of his old catalogs for sale, please contact me.

The best comment was, “Funny that the priciest case then is the crappiest one now.” Referring to the 1975 Topps ABC Sports “Giant Stickers” for $40. They must have printed a million of them (and) or sold poorly because they’re incredibly easy to find today; a box was sold on eBay for $8 a few weeks ago.

A 1941 Goudey Baseball Complete Set Of 33 Cards

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It’s a set that I’ve considered collecting, started, and stopped multiple times. What is 1941 Goudey baseball? Christie’s offered these nine (as part of a complete set) in October 1992.

Here’s the full description that Christie’s included in the catalog:

Goudey Gum Company’s last set issued. Front features black and white player action photograph with yellow, red, green, or blue backgrounds. Name, team, piston and card number are stated on bottom; blank-backed-excellent to mint.

Despite only having 33 cards, it’s a super tough set to put together; they just don’t come to market very often. Plus, as a collector, you need to decide what you’re trying to do; some people would say the set is 132 cards, each of the 33 players in each of four background color variations. And if you like graded items, PSA has slabbed just >2000 cards across all those combos (that averages to about 15 of each). And if you’re condition-sensitive, good luck; most have awful centering and rough edges.

A Pair Of 1983 Card Shows With Special Guest Stars

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I ran across the following pair of advertisements for card shows in the February 1983 issue of The Trader Speaks, so I asked folks on X which they would most want to travel back to 1983 to attend.

The first was the Baseball Card & Memorabilia show at the JFK Travelodge International Hotel on January 29th, 1983, with special guest star Hank Bauer.

The second was for the Sports Memorabilia Show #5 at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany, New Jersey, held on February 26 and 27th, 1983, with special guest celebrities Carl Erskine and Jimmy Piersall.

Folks preferred the JFK show at a ratio of 7:4. However, one collector said the Bauer show was the easy choice because they got both Piersall’s and Erskine’s autos in person before.

Which show sounds the most appealing to you?

1941 Play Ball Paper Sheet

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Christie’s offered this extremely scarce 1941 Play Ball paper sheet of twelve cards in their October 1993 catalog. It was expected to sell for $750-$1,000.

With cardboard being a critical commodity leading up to the US involvement in World War II, Play Ball issued a 24-card paper version of their 1941 baseball set. The “cards” were issued in two 12-card sheets. A scarce test issue to begin with, these cards were more fragile than their cardboard counterparts, which has made them increasingly difficult to find. 

In the lot’s description, Christie’s wrote that in 1941, Gum Inc. produced two paper proof sheets. The lot pictured above had twelve cards, numbered 1 to 12, printed on thin paper stock. This one was described as being in near-mint condition.

Heritage Auctions sold another copy of the same paper uncut sheet for $720 in May 2019.

And in August 2023, Huggins and Scott offered both sheets, but the current/final price shows “0.00” after opening at $500, so perhaps it got pulled.

1938 O-Pee-Chee Horrors Of War Dealer Advertising Sheet

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I found this 1938 dealer advertising sheet for the Canadian counterpart of the U.S. Gum, Incorporated 1938 Horrors of War set in Mastro’s 2004 auction catalog.

The ad sheet was part of a “Fascinating and Diverse 1930’s-1960’s Non-Sports Collection” and was described as a “Dealer Advertising Sheet; blue-on-white, no illustrations, measures 16-1/2” x 22” w/ mailing folds; text promotes upcoming HOW issue to retailers (EX/MT).”

I don’t want to dwell on the cards much, perhaps in a future post, but the basics are that while advertised as a series of 240 cards, the Canadian set fell short of O-Pee-Chee’s lofty goals. There ended up being only 72 OPC Horror of War cards, and now, because the print run was so small, the cards are really desirable and pricey.

I want to highlight the lower-left corner of the advertising sheet; you can see a call out to the May 9th, 1938 issue of Life Magazine that highlighted the set. I managed to grab a copy of the magazine off eBay for just $13.45 (including shipping)!

Page two of the magazine included the photo sources of what was to come. You can see that pages four and five have pictures credited to Gum, Inc.

Pages four and five highlighted the 1938 Horrors of War set (and true bubble-gum artists).

Here’s the full spread:

The magazine’s table of contents followed the card spread on page seven and called the features “Speaking of Pictures: Bubble Gum’s War in China.”

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