Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
  eNews Issue #121 (May 2014)       www.oldcardboard.com


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Welcome to Old Cardboard, the most complete reference resource for information about collecting vintage baseball cards and related memorabilia.  More information about this eNewsletter and its companion website and magazine are found at the bottom of this page.

Contents:
1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar
2. German Transfer Stamps Use W515 Graphics
3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website
4. Connie Marrero Dies and 102
5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)


1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar

The following is a summary of vintage card events coming up in the next 30-45 days. For the most current listings on additional vintage card shows and auctions, see the Key Events Calendar on the Old Cardboard website.

Have an event that needs to be on the OC Calendar?
Email editor@oldcardboard.com.


OC eNewsletter Sponsor

May 2014

21Phone/Internet Mile High Auction (see website for details).
22Phone/Internet Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
28-29Phone/Internet Legendary Auctions (see website for details).
29Internet Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
31Internet Love of the Game Auction (see website for details).
5/30-6/1Houston Tristar Houston Show (see website for details).
31Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auctions (see website for details).

June 2014

4Phone/Internet Clean Sweep Auctions (see website for details).
12Phone/Internet Huggins & Scott Auctions (see website for details).
12Internet Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
21Phone/Internet RMY Auctions (see website for details).
25Phone/Internet Mile High Extra Innings Auction (see website for details).
26Phone/Internet Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
26Internet Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
28Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auctions (see website for details).


2. German Transfer Stamps Use W515 Graphics

As a follow-up to the article "1923 German Transfer Stamps: A Colorful Display of Ugly Drawings" (Old Cardboard Issue #31, Spring 2014), subscriber Michael Festa has noted that the images used in the German Transfer Stamps are based on the same graphics used in the W515 Strip Card set.

Nevertheless, it could be argued, the W515 cards are just about as ugly!

As illustrated in the Grover Cleveland examples at right, some (but not all) of the stamp images are mirrored versions of the W515 cards.

While the German Transfer Stamps include nine boxers, all thirteen of its baseball players are found in the 60-card W515 Set. For ease of comparison, the full gallery of baseball players from Transfer Stamps is shown below along with each player's counterpart from the W515s.

Only the card of Everett Scott appears to be based on a different original photo. Note: there are actually two "Scott" cards in the W515 set--one for Everett Scott and one for Jack Scott. However, neither card seems to match the graphic on the Scott transfer stamp.


Alexander

Bancroft

Burns

Cobb

Faber



Nehf

Ruth

Schalk

Scott

Shawkey


Speaker

Stengel

Wheat

The Checklist for the W515 Strip Card set on the Old Cardboard website has been expanded to note the players that are also found on the German Transfer Stamps.



OC eNewsletter Sponsor

3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website

We are continually expanding the Old Cardboard website with more set profiles, checklists and card galleries. Recent (past 30-40 days) additions include:

Set Checklists have been added for:
1923   W515   Strip Cards (expanded to cross-reference German Transfer Stamps)
1938   PM8   Our National Game Pins

Set Galleries have been added for:
1938   PM8   Our National Game Pins

Updating the website with checklists and full set galleries for additional vintage sets is an ongoing project, so check back often to check out the latest additions. There are now many thousands of card images on the website and the list continues to grow every month. We welcome and encourage feedback with checklist additions, card images, error corrections and suggestions. Please send all input to editor@oldcardboard.com.

Beyond the above pages recently added to the Old Cardboard website, we continue to expand and refine our eBay Custom Search Links to make finding vintage baseball cards on eBay easier than ever. The results of these searches are continuously changing, so check back often to find the most recent eBay listings. Samples of a few of these custom searches are provided below. Hundreds more are provided on the Set Profile pages throughout the Old Cardboard website.

Foreign
C46 Imperial Tobacco (Canada)
V61 Neilson's Choc. (Canada)
V300 O-Pee-Chee (Canada)
Propagandas Montiel (Cuba)
Stamps/Transfers (Germany)
Menko Cards (Japan)

Miscellaneous
S74 "Silks"
1914 B18 Blankets
1939 Centennial Stamps
1930s Diamond Matchbooks
Baseball Sheet Music
1943 Yankees Stamps

(more custom searches
by major card groups)



4. Connie Marrero Dies at 102

We were saddened to learn of the passing last month of Conrado "Connie" Marrero, who reigned for three years as the oldest living former major league player. He died in Havana, Cuba on April 23, just two days short of his 103 birthday.

Marrero was a 39-year-old "rookie" when he joined the Washington Senators in 1950. He had already achieved status as a Cuban national hero for his role in leading the Cuban national team to three amateur world championships in the late 1930s and 1940s.

In Washington, Marrero quickly became a fan favorite due to his small stature (5 feet, 5 inches), his "junk-ball" pitching, his broken Englilsh and his ever-present cigar. He played for the lackluster Senators from 1950 through 1954 against a line-up of not-so-lackluster batters that included all-time superstars Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.

In 1951, Marrero was also named to the American League All-Star team and was featured in an extensive article in the June 11 issue of Life magazine.

In addition to his pitching prowess, Marrero's legacy includes representation in mainstream card sets produced in the early 1950s by both Topps and Bowman. Front and back card images from several of these sets are shown in Old Cardboard Issue #25. He is also featured in some much more obscure Cuban issues such as the team composite shown below produced in 1947 as a premium supplement by Fotos magazine.
Conrado "Connie" Marrero is featured top center in this Fotos magazine premium of the 1947 Havana Cubans of the Florida International League. Havana won 105 games and the League title. It was led by Marrero's pitching, who went 25-6 with a 1.66 ERA (click on image to enlarge; partially restored)

As part of a baseball tour of Cuba in 2011, Lyman had the privilege to visit twice with Marrero to help celebrate his 100th birthday at his home in Havana. Representing Old Cardboard, he was able to record part of the event in a 4-minute video that can now be viewed on
YouTube.

In the clip, Marrero, who speaks very little English, is presented with a scored program from a June 26, 1951 game played in Washington between the Senators and the Yankees. In that game, Marrero pitched against Yankee superstar hitters DiMaggio and Mantle. He was the winning pitcher, beating Yankee pitcher Eddie Lopat 7 to 3. Although the game was played sixty years earlier, Marrero remembered it in amazing detail--well beyond the facts recorded in the box score in the program.

As background to the video, the person on the left in the clip is Kit Krieger, the trip organizer and longtime friend of Marrero. On the right is Clem Axel, interpreter and expert on all things Cuban.

See also: "Connie" Marrero: A Cuban Beisbol Legend" in OC eNewsletter #82.


5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)

N284 Buchner Gold Coin Gallery: One More to Go. Thanks to vintage card dealer and collector Mike Wheat for sending us an image of card #121 (Emmett Seery; hands outstretched) from the 1887 N284 Buchner Gold Coin set. The image has been added to the N284 Gallery on the Old Cardboard website. With this addition, we are now missing only one card image (#134 Ward; hands on knees) from the 143-card gallery.

New Reigning Oldest ML Player. Congrats to Mike Sandlock, the new reigning oldest former Major League player. Ninty-eight years young, Mike was born 17 October 1915 and played in 195 games for the Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Dodgers. Among other sets, Mike is represented in the 1953 Topps set as a Pittsburgh Pirate and on a 1954 Topps card as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies--a team for which he never played.


Lyman and Brett Hardeman
Old Cardboard, LLC.

Old Cardboard, LLC. was established in December 2003, to help bring information on vintage baseball card collecting to the hobbyist.  Produced by collectors for collectors, this comprehensive resource consists of three components: (1) Old Cardboard Magazine, (2) a companion website at www.oldcardboard.com and (3) this eNewsletter. The Old Cardboard website contains more than 500 pages of descriptive reference information for baseball card sets produced fifty years ago or longer.  Each of these set summaries has a direct set-specific link to auctions and a similar link to 's powerful search engine for further research.  The website also includes a Show and Auction Calendar, an eBay Top 50 Vintage Sellers List, and much more.  As a result, the Old Cardboard website makes a great "Alt-tab" companion for vintage card shoppers and researchers.  Old Cardboard eNews provides current hobby news, upcoming shows and auctions, and updates to the website and the magazine.  It is published around the middle of each month.  For a FREE subscription to the eNewsletter, or for subscription information on Old Cardboard Magazine, please visit the website at www.oldcardboard.com.  If you find this information resource helpful, please tell your friends.  We need your support and your feedback. Thank you.