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For some years I have puzzled over the artwork used by Red Man chewing tobacco for the Ted Williams card in its 1952 set (it was the only year Williams was in Red Man).
The chest-up portrait shows Williams with a bat over his left shoulder . . . but what a left shoulder! He looks like Quasimodo.
I never understood why the Red Man artist added so much extra jersey.
Now, thanks to the Nov. 19-20 Legendary Auctions sale, I see what happened.
The Legendary auction included a number of original photographs by New York photographer William Jacobellis that were used either as photos or as the basis for artwork on classic baseball card sets of the 1950s.
One of those photos is that upon which the '52 Red Man T.W. artwork was based. The Red Man artist removed the American League 50th Anniversary patch that was visible on the left sleeve in the Jacobellis photo.
I believe that Red Man didn't want to date their picture as "old" by showing the patch used on 1951 A.L. uniforms. A cursory search of other American League cards in the set shows none of them with the anniversary patch.
I might have opted to truncate the left sleeve more radically when preparing the painting, but evidently the original artist felt that would create too much unused space on the card.
The Williams photo, by the way, sold for $2,032 in the Legendary auction.
I've expanded my custom card repertoire with this latest creation. It's a "what might have been" fantasy card of Mickey Mantle in the format of the 1952 Red Man tobacco cards.
My custom Mantle is in the original 3-1/2" x 4" format. To better replicate the original Red Mans, I used a thinner cardboard stock for this one. It really has the "feel" of the originals.
As opposed to most of my custom cards, on which the back -- which usually has biographical details, stats, cartoons, etc. -- takes more time to create than the front, this one was a snap. Since the backs of 1952 Red Mans (and 1953, 1954, 1955, as well) were "generic," I only had to scan an original and clean it up a bit.
The front is essentially a mashup of three elements. The background is from the front of a 1955 Red Man Whitey Ford card. With one click in my Photochop Elements graphics program, I flopped the image and moved the Yankee Stadium details from the left to the right side of the card.
The coupon at bottom started out on a scan I found on an auction site of a 1952 Red Man Ted Williams card. I changed the card number and cleaned up the typography and color bars.
Mantle's picture came from the cover of the 1953 Dell Baseball Annual. I had to do a lot of trial-and-error cutting and pasting to find a size and positioning that would allow for maximum detail yet still leave room for the text box.
I've always been frustrated that the Photoshop Elements program doesn't have the ability to create justified text . . . at least not that I've ever been able to find on my ancient 2.0 version.
After giving the matter some thought and trying a few workarounds, I determined that if I wanted to create justified text such as usually found on baseball cards, I'd just have to bite the bullet and do it the hard way. After writing my text in the designated space, I nudge every single word of it into a position that creates a pretty good approximation of justified type.
There's currently one more Red Man-style card on my to-do list, though I don't know when I'll actually get it into production. You'll see it here first.
