Postcard

1941 Joe DiMaggio’s Restaurant Postcards

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One of the most colorful and unique hobby-adjacent collectibles you can add to your collection is a circa 1941 Joe DiMaggio’s Restaurant Linen postcard. I picked up this variation and its souvenir envelope for just $27.

Ron Menchine wrote a few books on baseball postcards and said, “The most famous and probably the best of the brothers who have played baseball were the DiMaggios. They grew up near the San Francisco waterfront, so it’s not surprising that they parlayed their fame and money into a popular restaurant on Fishermen’s Wharf.”

The variation with the three brothers along the top has the following specs, according to Menchine in his 1999 Baseball Postcard Collection book:

  • Publisher: Joe DiMaggio’s Restaurant, San Francisco, CA
  • Manufacturer: Curt Teich Co., Chicago, IL
  • Type: Linen
  • Postmark: Not Used
  • Value: $100-$150

The other variation of the restaurant’s postcard has two interior, an exterior, and a Joe DiMaggio picture on the front.

If you’re into graded items, PSA has graded four with interior views and seven with all the brothers, and SGC has added two of each of those copies. SGC also has two labeled as ‘Joe DiMaggio’ in their Pop Report, but I think those are old-flip three-brother combos, like the following example. I’ve also seen a Beckett slabbed postcard before.

1915 Boston Red Sox Postcard

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Notice anything significant about this 1915 Boston Red Sox Postcard? Yup, that’s Babe Ruth in the middle of the back row!

Sotheby’s offered this piece in their March 1991 auction that featured items from The Copeland Collection.

It was described as a “real photo team postcard” made before the World Series of the American League Champion Boston Red Sox. Boston went on to win that World Series four games to one against Philadelphia. Sotheby’s, of course, highlighted Babe Ruth but also identified Speaker and Hooper on the near mint-conditioned postcard-backed item.

This is the sort of historical collectible that has exploded in price over the past 30 years. The estimate for the postcard was $3,000-4,000 back in 1991 but has skyrocketed in recent years. When the finest graded example (there are just 10 in PSA’s Pop Report), a PSA 6, was offered by Heritage Auctions in February 2024, it went for $564k, and lower-graded copies are now $80k-115k+.

UPDATE: Aug 2024. REA sold the following example for $114k on August 11, 2024.

Los Angeles Angels 1961 Club Falstaff Brewing Postcard Type Photo

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I’ve been getting into baseball postcard collecting lately; here’s one of my favorites, published by the Angels’ radio and TV sponsor, Falstaff Brewing.

I was attracted to this niche after I flipped through Tuff Stuff’s Baseball Card Postcard Collection by Ron Menchine and saw so many interesting items.

Here’s how Menchine described the Angels piece.

One could wonder if this one is really a postcard; it’s ~6 1/4” x 9”, but I’ve seen other postcards about that size. A collector told me it’s likely an unused, team-issued item to which a person would have either typed/written a shipping address or applied a delivery address label.

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