Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
  eNews Issue #134 (June 2015)       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. Set Profile: 1921 W551 Strip Cards
3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website
4. 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

June 2015

27Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auctions (see website for details).

July 2015

1Phone/Internet Clean Sweep Auctions (see website for details).
8Internet Sports Card Link (see website for details).
9Phone/Internet Mile High Auction (see website for details).
14-16Phone/Internet Hake's Americana & Collectibles Auction (incl. baseball; website).
17Phone/Internet Leland's Auction (see website for details).
18Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auctions (see website for details).
23Phone/Internet Bussineau Sports Rarities Summer Auction(see website for details).
29-31Chicago National Sports Collectors Convention (see website for details).
30-31Chicago Heritage Signature Sports Collectibles Auction (see website for details).
31Phone/Internet Goldin Auctions (see website for details).


2. Set Profile: 1921 W551 Strip Cards

This strip card set designated W551 in the American Card Catalog was issued about 1921. The white-bordered cards are blank-backed and include ten of the more prominent baseball players of the period. Athletes from several other sports are also represented in the set.

The colorized card fronts show portraits of the ten players in uniform. Below each image is the player's full name, along with his team (printed within quotation marks) and initials (A.L. or N.L.) designating his league affiliation.


Labelng in Black
(Authentic)

Labeling in Blue
(Probable Reprints)
The card labeling is usually found in black ink, although variations are sometimes found with blue labeling, as shown in the example Frank Baker cards at right. Both cards are shown enlarged about 20 percent. CAUTION: there is consenus among longtime vintage collectors that have handled the blue-labeled variations that they are reprints, probably from the early 1990s. The cards they have handled are printed on heavier quality stock not like that typically used for 1920s strip sets.

Other sports represented in the W551 set include boxing, swimming, rowing, golf, ice skating, tennis and billiards.

As with many other sets, the images used in the W551 series are not all unique. For example, the card for Tris Speaker from this set is taken from the exact same pose used in Speaker's T206 card issued a full decade earlier.

Examples for Speaker's card from each of these sets are shown below (first separately and then overlayed with the W551 card on top). At first glance, it may not appear that the pose is identical. However, by rotating the W551 card 30 degrees clockwise, the two images overlay almost perfectly, as seen in the animation.

T206


W551

Click to see Transition
Between Cards
Click on the overlayed cards to see a gradual transistion from the W551 to the T206 Speaker image. Once there, the transition sequence can be repeated by selecting the refresh button on your browser.

The two cards also highlight the fact that Speaker moved from Boston to Cleveland in 1916, about midway between the times that the two sets were issued.


Cobb

W551

W514
Note: The poses for all of the players in the W551 set except Ruth (i.e., Baker, Bancroft, Barnes, Cobb, Johnson, Pipp, Sisler, Speaker and Stengel) are the same as their respective poses in the W514 strip set (see Cobb examples at right).

All nine cards with shared poses between the two sets have small variations in cropping and coloring but are based on the same original photo. However, while Ruth is represented in both sets, his poses are different.








OC eNewsletter Sponsor


3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website

Example Group Gallery
(N-Cards)



(continued in column 2)

(continued from column 1)


A key new and ongoing feature for the Old Cardboard website has been the addition of Group Galleries for each of the major card groups found in the American Card Catalog.

Such Group Galleries function as "type card" indexes within each major card group. They are intended to help streamline the identification of various card sets and provide a visual path to the Profile pages for each set.

An example for the N-Card Group Gallery is shown at left (click on the gallery image to link directly to the active online N-Card Group Gallery with links to each individual set in the group).

Each card image in the group represents a set and includes a link to more detailed information about the issue.

Galleries for some card groups were previously posted in the Reference section of the Old Cardboard website. However, we are in the process of expanding these new galleries and listing them as the first entry in the Group Index that can be accessed directly from every page on the Old Cardboard website. They will therefore be much more in the mainstream flow of the website.

For starters, we have added Group Galleries for N-Cards and 19th Century Albums (A-Cards), as well as Bread and Bakery issues (D-Cards). Other major card groups will be added over the next several months.

In addition to the above Group Galleries, we are continually expanding the Old Cardboard website with more set profiles, checklists and card galleries. Recent (past 30-40 days) additions include:

Set Profiles have been added for:
1887  A42  Kimball's Champions Album (Album Premium for N184 card set).

Set Checklists have been added for:
1925   W504   Universal Toy & Novelty

Set Galleries have been added for:
1925   W504   Universal Toy & Novelty
1925-28   W512/W513   Strip Card Sheets (Four 25-card sheets that make up the W512 and W513 strip card sets;
                                                                              includes all baseball and non-baseball subjects).

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.

F-Cards
1916 Tango Eggs
1928 F50 Ice Cream
1935-41 Wheaties
1937/38 Dixie Lids
1952-54 Dixie Lids
1937/48 Kelloggs
1947-50 Hage's Dairy
1952 F272-3 Wheaties
Num Num Chips

M-Cards
Sporting News Record Book
M101-2 Sporting News
M101-5/4 Sporting News
M101-7 Sporting News
M113/4 Baseball Mag. Posters
M116 Sporting Life
M120 Det. Free Press
Blum's Bulletin Poster
M110 Sporting Life

(more custom searches
by major card group)



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

Baseball History & Art Magazine Launched. A new quarterly magazine featuring baseball history and art was recently launched by Helmar Brewing Co. of the Detroit suburb of Pleasant Ridge. Vol. 1, Number 1 (Summer 2015) of the magazine can be previewed online at the Helmar website. Helmar is best known not for their brew, but for their quality baseball card artwork inspired by many of the classic card designs of vintage sets, We wish them success in their new venture.

Video Describes High-Grade E93s. A video describing 17 high-grade E93 Standard Caramel cards can be viewed on the YouTube website. The cards are being auctioned in Mile High Card Company's Summer auction ending July 9. The cards all grade PSA 7 or higher and include cards for HOFers Cobb, Wagner and Mathewson--all grading PSA 9 Mint. The average bid for these three players currently exceeds $35,000.


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.