1980(?) Union Novelty N.Y. Yankees

A collectors' issue that has heretofore remained uncataloged but that is found regularly on eBay and at card shows purports to have been issued by Union Novelty Co., Los Angeles.

The set features frequently-seen images of Yankees greats in a 3-1/2” x 5-1/2” black-and-white format. There is no indication of issue date. The cards may have been produced anytime between about 1980, when collectors' issues began to proliferate within the hobby, and 1995. The latter date was the year of Mickey Mantle's death, and authnticated examples of the cards bearing Mantle's autograph are known.

The cards were produced in two styles. One version has printing on front with the player name(s), references to the team and a card number from within a series of 20. Backs of this type are identical, describing the card as “one in a collection of nostalgic prints of famous athletes.” The second type has nothing on front except the player photo with a white border. Backs of this style are arranged as a postcard. There is no price differential between the types.

This is the checklist:

1 Mickey Mantle
2 Mickey Mantle
3 Mickey Mantle
4 Mickey Mantle
5 Mickey Mantle
6 Mickey Mantle
7 Roger Maris & Mickey Mantle
8 Mantle & Maris
9 Lou Gehrig
10 Lou Gehrig & Joe DiMaggio
11 DiMaggio and Bauer
12 Joe DiMaggio
13 Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio
14 “The Yankee Clipper” Joe DiMaggio
15 Roger Maris
16 Whitey Ford
17 Yogi Berra
18 “The Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig
19 Phil Rizzuto
20 Babe Ruth

A reasonable retail value for the set would be about $40. Single cards sell for $3-5 each.

Ho-hum . . . another 1954 Topps-style Mantle. But mine has a story.

Everybody and their uncle seems to have done a 1954 Topps-style Mickey Mantle card. Upper Deck had one in its 1994 All-Time Heroes set. Topps had a bunch of them in 2007, and again in 2011 and now in 2012 Archives.

And several of the other custom card makers had tried their hand at creating the 1954 Topps Mantle "card that never was."

For that reason, I never made too much of a priority of doing one of my own. But, because of a long held -- but as it turns out, faulty -- childhood memory, the time has come for me to make such a card.

We have to first travel back to the late 1970s, when I renewed my interest in 1950s baseball cards. It was about 1979 that I became aware of the "organized" hobby, such as it was 35+ years ago, with its collectors' papers, nascent show circuit and rudimentary catalogs/price guides.

At the top of my newly created want list back then, besides the Johnston cookies Milwaukee Braves sets of 1953-55, were 1954 Topps cards of Henry Aaron and Mickey Mantle.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I bought a copy of Larry Fritsch's baseball card checklist book and discovered that there was no 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle card.

Mind, until 1956 when Topps finally started including them in wax packs, we kid collectors never had a checklist for the Topps and Bowman cards we accumulated every summer. The only way we had of knowing how many cards were in a particular set was when, after buying pack after pack late in the summer, nobody in the neighborhood had found a card numbered beyond a certain point. And in those years when the companies skipped a few card numbers, some obsessive kids went broke trying to find the "missing" cards (as the gum companies had intended).

Why did I have a '54T Mantle at the top of my want list? Because I was sure I had seen one as a kid.

We now have to travel back even further in time, to about 1959. I had a vivid memory of having seen a '54T Mantle during a card trading session.

A handful of us second or third grade collectors had gathered on the sidewalk in front of Dave Domenget's house. I know it was about 1959 because I was still attending public school and Domenget was a classmate. In  1960 I was transferred to the newly opened parish school and didn't hang out with my old classmates much.

I don't remember who I misremembered as having had the 1954 Topps Mantle, but even 25 years later, I could recall the lime green background on the card's front. Obviously I was unsuccessful in trading for the card.

As an adult collector, I soon realized that what I thought had been a 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle card had probably been a Gene Woodling, which sports the lime green background that I so distinctly remembered.

Naturally, when I decided to finally realize my childhood dream of owning a 1954 Topps Mickey Mantle, my custom card had to have that green background.

If you're interested in the other pieces that were assembled for my Mantle . . . 

The facsimile autograph was lifted from a 1954 Bowman. It is more period-correct than the sig used by UD in 1994 and Topps this year.

The portrait photo is from some auction or other. While you can't see it on my card, the rookie-year picture has the 1951 American League 50th anniversary patch on the uniform's left sleeve. The photo was originally in black-and-white, so I colorized it.

The full-length photo is from the Dormand postcard series of the mid-1950s. It shows the N.Y. Yankees 50th year sleeve patch that the team wore in 1952. Unlike the portrait, the Dormand photo was originally in color, so I converted it to black-and-white.

The cartoons on back were repurposed from original '54T. The cartoon at left is from Jim Pendleton's card. Those in the center and at right originally appeared on Preston Ward's card.

Since I've gone to the effort of creating such a compelling card-portrait photo, I've decided to put together a 1955 Topps-style Mickey Mantle card in the near future. 

Watch for it here.

Mantle's changing sig caused contract controversy

The evolution of Mickey Mantle's signature, so well documented in the baseball card/memorabilia hobby, once created a kurfuffle among team owners.

At a press conference on Feb. 27, 1963, at the Yankees' spring training headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Mantle signed his 1963 Yankees contract -- as television cameras rolled -- calling for a salary of $100,000.

With Mantle's permission, the team had engineered the unprecedented publicity stunt to advertise the fact the Yankees were so successful that they could make Mantle the highest-paid player in baseball.

Later, "photostatic" copes of the contract were sent to the print media. 

Immediately, San Francisco Giants president Horace Stoneham questioned the legitimacy of the contract. He contended that the image of Mantle's contract promulgated by the Yankees was not the "real" contact, intimating that the Yankees were not paying Mantle $100,000 for the '63 season.

Stoneham had a vested interest in the matter because he had recently agreed to terms with Willie Mays for the 1963 season at a reported salary of $100,000. Mays, however, had not yet signed his contract in late February so Mantle was in actuality at the top of baseball's salary scale.

The Giants' executive no doubt felt compelled to question the Yankees' deal with Mantle because New York had garnered the publicity that Stoneham was expecting when Mays inked his 1963 contract.

It seemed to be Stoneham's contention that Mantle's "real" contract was at a figure less than 100 Gs. 

Writing in the March 16, 1963, issue of The Sporting News, San Francisco baseball writer Bob Stevens said Stoneham "indicated a slight doubt as to its authenticity by saying out loud, 'Mickey doesn't print his signature; he writes it.'"

Stevens commented, "A closer inspection (of the contract) supported this theory." 

Giants catcher Ed Bailey pointed out that on the contract shown to the media, the date of Mantle's acceptance had not been filled in, nor did the document carry the authorizing signature of  Roy Hamey, the Yankees' general manager.

At the end of the article either Stevens, or possibly a Sporting News' editor, wrote, "A comparison of Mickey's signature on the new contract with that penned in The Sporting News' annual book, 'The Baseball Register,' also strongly indicated that the Yankees had not shown the real McCoy to newsmen."

Accompanying the TSN article was a picture of the Mantle contract on which the paper's editors had superimposed the image of Mantle's signature from the Register. 

Today's collectors will recognize that the Register signature is consistent with Mantle's style early in his career; on his 1952 Topps card, for example. The signature shown on the body of his 1963 contract is in the style evolved later in his career and generally used for the remainder of his life.

Responding to Stoneham's veiled accusation, Yankees' exec Hamey told The Sporting News, "I've got the contract in my safe. And it's the same one he signed for the TV cameras that day.

"It's as real as the Rock of Gibraltar," Hamey added. "There never was a more legitimate $100,000 contract than the one Mickey signed at the press conference. When one of our ball players is good enough and box office enough to earn a $100,000 contract, we want the whole, wide world to know it's the real McCoy and not a publicity stunt."

Since 1963, the once-controversial contract has made its way into the sports memorabilia hobby. It was publicly sold as early as 2005 in an American Memorabilia auction. In a Grey Flannel Auctions sale on June 5, 2013, it sold for $17,216. 

The auction lot description addressed those 1963 Giants concerns that the contract was undated and did not bear G.M. Hamey's signature. "The procedure in sealing this agreement entails three separate, but identical, contracts - one for the player (signed by a franchise executive), another for the team's files (usually penned by the player only), and yet another (signed by both parties) submitted to the President of the American League, who ultimately sanctions the contract. This is presumably the team's copy as it bears Mantle's signature only."

Watch out for Mantle program reprints

If there was a Hall of Fame for unsung baseball historians, the minor league wing should be named for John G. Hall of Columbia, Mo.

For the past 16 years, Hall has been chronicling the Kansas- Oklahoma-Missouri League, a Class D circuit that existed for only half that long, from 1946-1952.

Hall publishes a quarterly (or so) newsletter called The KOM League Remembered, and in recent years has been supplementing the print presentation with what he calls KOM League Flash Reports on the internet.

Hall seems to know virtually every alumnus of that minor league or their surviving relatives. His newsletter and Flash Reports are full of great stories of the ballplayer veterans of the K-O-M League and of virtually everything else related to the circuit. His writings bring to life many of the faces that card collectors are familiar with from their Bowman and Topps cards of the late 1940s and 1950s.

These reports are not only historically important, but they are written in an entertaining style that makes them great reading for any baseball fan. You can get a sense of the author's style from the copyright notice on each issue, which concludes, "All rights reserved until the day I die. Within a month afterward no one will remember ths publication ever existed. And, justifiably so." Elsewhere he states, "Some of the news in this publication isn't fit to print, but is."

Besides his work in detailing and preserving the history of the K-O-M, Hall was in the past involved in setting up reunions for its players. In conjunction with the 1998 reunion, he created reprints of a pair of scorecards for games in which Mickey Mantle had played with the 1949 Independence Yankees and the 1950 Joplin Miners.

Mantle is unarguably the most famous alumnus of the K-O-M League. Hall wrote a 2005 book titled, Mickey Mantle: Before the Glory, that has long since sold out at its cover price of $29.95 and now sells on used-book sites for as much as $100+. He's also the author of a K-O-M League photo book, Images of Baseball, published in 2004.

In exchanging e-mails with Hall in recent months, since he contacted me following our recent posts on Ponca City Dodgers cards of 1952, the subject of his scorecard reprints came up and we agreed that it would be a good idea to publicize their existence so that collectors are less likely to be fooled into buying them as valuable original artifacts of Mantle's minor league days.

And that IS a concern, because the reprints are extremely well done and are not overtly identified as reproductions. There was a total of 500 of each of the scorecards made in 1998, and besides distributing them to the players at the reunion, some have been dispersed to fans and collectors over the years.

The cover and that portion of each of the scorecards that lists Mantle are shown here.

At top is a 1949 scorecard of a game between Mantle's I-Yankees and the Iola Indians. Like the original, it is a four-pager printed in 7"x 11-1/4" format, printed in red and black. The Mick, wearing number 16 and playing shortstop, batted seventh in that game and was hitting .315 at the time. I can't decipher the scorer's (Hall said the original from which this was reprinted was scored by a friend of Iola right fielder Dick Getter) system, but it looks like the Yankees were 6-0 winners over Iola, though I can't tell what Mantle's contributions might have been. Obviously this neatly detailed scoring would immediately identify any example of a 1949 Independence-Iola scorecard that might be offered in the collector market as a reprint. So would the unique "Lucky Number" 10016 on the cover.

Some years ago I got into a bidding war on eBay for a similar Independence-Iola scorecard. It wasn't one of Hall's reprints, since it was unscored and had a different lucky number on the cover. I lost out to another collector, but can't today recall what the winning bid was. I wanted the card because of its Iola connection, rather than its ties to Mantle, so I wasn't willing to seriously compete with the Mantle fanatics.

The other Hall reprint is for a 1950 Western Association game with the St. Joseph Cardinals visiting Mantle's Joplin Miners. This was an eight-page affair, in 7" x 9-3/4" size, printed in red and black. The scorecard portion is unmarked, but the reprint would be readily identified by the Lucky Number 5307 on the third page, under a photo of Joplin infielder Carl Lombardi. (I wonder if other printings of the scorecard might have a photo of Mantle?). For the Miners, Mantle was at shortstop, batting clean-up and wearing number 12.

The historic value of scorecards like these would be significant even without the Mantle name. Significant at least to true fans of minor league baseball back in the day.

Just off the top of his head, Hall made these comments about some of the players listed in the line-ups on the Joplin-St. Joseph card.

"The guy in the St. Joseph lineup, playing first base, was "Smokey" Joe Cunningham who was with the Cardinals four years later. Hal Olt was at Springfield, Mo. in 1941 with Stan Musial. The Barth playing left field was Eugene Barth whose greatest fame came as an official in the National Football League. The right fielder that night for St. Joseph was Ace Adamcewicz. He was killed during the Korean War. He died November 21, 1952 in Ft. Devens, Mass. Both catchers at Joplin that year had major league affiliations. Cal Neeman eventually made it to the Chicago Cubs et. al. and the other catcher was the late Lyle Westrum. He was the younger brother of long-time major league catcher, Wes Westrum. Lyle died at an earlyage while duck hunting. I got to know his family a few years ago when I had the reunion of the Joplin Miners at the kickoff of my "book tour" for Mickey Mantle: Before the Glory.

Hopefully, publication of this information on the scorecard reprints will help prevent any fraudulent misrepresentation while at the same time engendering some appreciation for Hall's enthusiasm for K-O-M baseball.

If you have any interest in minor league ball in the immediate post-war era, I can't urge you strongly enough to contact John Hall and support his efforts at historic preservation. Check him out at http://komleaguebaseball.blogspot.com. Hall has also offered to make the few remaining pairs of his reprints available to collectors at $25 per pair, postpaid. The chances of an original of one of these Mantle-related scorecards turning up in the hobby market are slim to none, so this is a rare chance to get the next best thing. The revenue raised will be put towards the printing and mailing of his newsletter. You can order by sending check or money order to John Hall, 1709 Rainwood Place, Columbia, MO 65203.

Stengel blew top when Mick blew bubbles

It is ironic that the iconic ballplayer from 1950s bubblegum cards, Mickey Mantle, was once subjected to the legendary sharp tongue of manager Casey Stengel for the sin of having been photographed during a game blowing a gum bubble.

I found an article in the Sept. 23, 1953, issue of The Sporting News that featured a full-length photo of Mantle standing in center field, hands on hips, blowing a good-size bubble. Without doing a great deal of work it's not currently possible for me to reproduce the photo here, but there's no reason not to give you the full flavor of the TSN article.

The article was date-lined New York. The headline read "Mickey Bubbles Busted by Ol' Case".

There was a subhead: Gum Chums Rate Mantle's Technique Bush League; Say Texture Wrong, Too".

In full, here is the article:

"On Thursday, September 10, while the Yankees were taking their final meeting with the White Sox, 1 to 0, one of the photographers in the Stadium trained his telescopic lens on Mickey Mantle in center field.

"Much to the cameraman's amazement, he saw a big bubble issuing from Mickey's mouth. He looked again. It really was a bubble. Mantle was chewing bubble gum, and having himself a juvenile time.

"The photographer alerted his companions and the next day most of the local newspapers had pictures of Mantle and his gum bubble.

"Casey Stengel hauled Mantle on the carpet and asked him what he thought he was doing out there. Casey uttered about 50 dozen choice words, and Bubbles, of course, had nothing to say, except, 'It never will happen again.'

"And what did the kids--the experts--think of Mickey's technique as a bubbler?

"They said it's all wrong. He had his head too straight. Any bubble blower knows you can't get 'em real big that way. And if you do, you get in a mess if the bubble busts all over your chin and chest.

"The youngsters couldn't say much for the texture of his bubble, either. Theirs are clean and clear--like window panes. Mickey's was solid thick.

"Anyone could blow 'em that way, the kids agreed."

Then, as now, bubble gum was available free to players in the locker room. With both Topps and Bowman vying for player exclusivity, it's easy to imagine the players had their choice. A collector today has to wonder if the free locker room gum included packs of baseball cards.

Famous Mantle ball once went missing

At the time, some baseball writers tried to explain a brief outburst of moon-shot home runs early in the 1953 season to everything from that year's unusually cold, wet spring weather to pitchers having tired arms from overworking them in winter ball.

On April 17, Mickey Mantle rocketed a shot out of Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., that a Yankees PR man claims to have recovered 565 feet away.

Today the Mantle ball resides in the Hall of Fame, but it was nearly lost to baseball history.

Mickey Mantle posed with the
soon-to-be-stolen 565-ft. home run ball.

Facing Chuck Stobbs on a windy spring day in Washington, Mantle caught hold of a belt-high fast ball in the fifth inning. While tens of thousands of fans have since claimed that they were in the ballpark that day to witness the feat, recorded attendance was only 4,206.

Yankees public relations man Arthur "Red" Patterson claimed to have found the ball in the possession of a youngster who lived across the street from the ballpark. The Yankee employee said he paid the kid a dollar for the ball and promised him two autographed balls in exchange. He said he came up with the flight distance of the ball by pacing off from where it left the stadium to where the kid said it was found.
While the Guiness Book of World Records accepted Patterson's account, many skeptical fans and scientists claim it is impossible for a baseball to be batted 500 feet, let alone 565 feet.
Regardless, in early 1953 the baseball world was agog at the feat. The ball, and the bat that propelled it, were quickly put on display in a glass case in the main lobby of Yankee Stadium, preparatory to their being forwarded to the Hall of Fame. The 33-oz. club used by Mantle, by the way, was borrowed from teammate Loren Babe, and Mantle was tinkering with his equipment in the midst of a mini power slump.

On May 31, a maintenance man opening up Yankee Stadium in the morning discovered the famous baseball was missing from the glass case. The wires with which the bat was secured in the display had also been compromised, but the lumber was still there.

Officials later surmised that the thief or thieves had hidden in a restroom after the May 28 game and emerged after the stadium had been vacated to steal the ball.

In reporting the theft in The Sporting News, publisher J.G. Taylor Spink offered a "no questions asked" lifetime subscription for the ball's return.
On June 7, three 10-year-old boys showed up at the stadium with the home run ball. They claimed they had gotten it from two "older lads." The boys and their fathers were team owner Dan Topping's guests at the June 16 game, and the ball and bat were duly forwarded to Cooperstown.


A second notable home run in that first week of the 1953 season occurred on April 29. New Milwaukee Braves first baseman Joe Adcock became the first major leaguer to deposit a home run ball in the centerfield bleachers of the Polo Grounds. (Only Hank Aaron and Lou Brock would ever match the feat). Adcock's homer, off Giants pitcher Jim Hearn, was said to have traveled 475 feet.

I don't believe I've ever read whether the Adcock home run ball was ever recovered and preserved or whether it went home with a fan as a souvenir.

Topps memorialized Mantle's moon shot in the Baseball
Thrills subset of its 1961 baseball card issue.

My '55 Mantle completes Topps-style customs

When I presented my 1954 Topps-style custom Mickey Mantle card in this space on June 1, I mentioned that I would likely be creating a companion 1955-style custom.

I have completed that task, and with it my "run" of Topps-style-customs . . . at least for the time being. (I've got one more project bouncing around in the back of my mind.)

Topps itself has been making up for its lack of an original 1955 Mantle card for a number of years. In at least 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011, the gum company has issued some sort of Mantle tribute card in the format of the 1955 issue. I'm sure the hobby didn't need yet another retro '55T Mantle, but I felt compelled to try my hand at putting a Mantle card together in one of the favorite formats of my childhood.

As Topps often did in that era, I reused the portrait from my 1954-style card in the creation of my 1955. I'd already put in the work to colorize the photo for my '54-style card.

For the full-figure photo, I colorized a picture I found on the box of a Rawlings Mickey Mantle-model glove.

I experimented with background color, and even conducted a couple of popularity polls on baseball card forums that I frequent.

There were 13 New York Yankees cards in the original 1955 Topps set. Ten of them utilized yellow backgrounds. Two had red backgrounds and there was one in green. Because Topps so often used the yellow background in its 21st Century '55-style Mantles, I was hesitant to make that my choice.

However, after working with the card some more, I decided that yellow was the way to go. I'll give you as look at the red and green beta tests, just for fun.

Standard Catalog Update: 1962 Auravison records variations

The Auravision baseball player records of 1962 and 1964 have been popular collectibles since they were new. 

The 6-3/4" x 6-3/4" records are quite baseball card-like in that they feature color photos on front and player bio and stats on back. They were originally issued as mail-in premiums through offers found on Milk Duds candy boxes and Meadow Gold milk cartons, and possibly in other ways. There were eight player records in the 1962 version and 16 in 1964.

Because large quantities of the 1964 set of 16 were remaindered into the hobby in the 1970s, they remain readily available and reasonably priced even today. On any given day several hundred of the '64s will be found listed on eBay (though only a relative handful of the 1962 versions are seen in that venue).

Pennsylvania collector Fred McKie, who was a regular contributor to the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards when I was editing the book, reports that at least two of the 1962 records can be found with back variations.

The '62 Mantle and Spahn records have been found with large stickers on back "updating" the stats through 1962. These appear to have been an interim version created between the "normal" 1962 and 1964 issues.

Here's how Fred explains it:

A few years back I found a strange Mickey Mantle Auravision record. As you may recall there are two Mantle poses. The 1962 pose has Mantle swinging full-length with a player in the background. The 1964 version has a smaller batting pose. Of course the stats on the back were different. The '62 has stats through 1961, and the '64 has stats through 63.

I have found a Mantle batting full pose with the player in the background with stats through 1963. The back has an almost full back sticker that has been attached to the record that I assume has the '61 stats underneath. You can see that the "sticker" version is missing the horizontal orange line that goes across the center of the card. You can see part of the original orange line through the punch-out hole that was included in the sticker if the owner wanted to play the record.

Also note the different cropping of the Mantle photo on back in the upper-left of the record. In the sticker version his head is much farther from the top border than on the others. I figured this was sticker-back variation was only found on the Mantle.

But recently I found another on eBay: Warren Spahn.

If you recall, the 1962 Spahn was the only one in the set that had stats only through 1960 for some reason.The '64 version "caught up" and had stats through 1963. The '64 version had a different photo on the back from the '62 issue.

The new variation I got on eBay has the full sticker back, again with no orange line through the center with 1963 stats and the same basic photo on the reverse as the '62, though there is a small difference in the photo with a tree showing by his left shoulder while the original '62 photo did not show this.

I hope this all makes sense to you. I have attached scans of the cards for you to see.

Hopefully you can post this and ask others if they have any other players with the "sticker backs" with no orange line across the back.

For ease of reference, here are pictures of the three versions of Spahn and Mantle.

1962 Mantle front

Normal 1962 Mantle back.

1962 Mantle sticker-back.

1964 Mantle back.

1962, 1964 Spahn front

Normal 1962 Spahn back.

1962 Spahn sticker-back.

Normal 1964 Spahn back.

Another 1964 Topps Tatoo Mantle variation

Honest, I don't make decisions on which newly reported variations to add to the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards on the basis of what will consternate the greatest number of collectors.

But one of the most recently reported varieties, which just got in under the wire for the 2012 edition, involves a popularly collected Topps ancillary issue and the most expensive player in the set.

Levi Bleam of 707 Sportscards has confirmed the existence of two different back color variations of one of the Mickey Mantle variations in the 1964 Topps Tatoos. (Does anybody else wonder why Topps spelled it "Tattoo" in 1960 and "Tatoo" in 1964?)

The 1964 Tatoos are actually the 1-9/16" x 3-1/2" wrapper for a piece of bubblegum. The "front" is a reversed artwork portrait of a player or team logo, that could be moistened and applied as a temporary tattoo. The back is the colorful outside of the wrapper with instructions.

It has only been in the past 10-15 years or so that the catalog recognized the existence of four front variations in the set, all Hall of Famers: 1) Harmon Killebrew can be found with a green or red background, 2) Sandy Koufax can be found with either a horizontal or diagonal bank of color behind the portrait, 3) Willie Mays can be found with a yellow band behind the portrait that either encompasses the portrait or only extends from his ears to his chin, and, 4) Mickey Mantle can be found with either a diagonal yellow band behind the portrait or a red triangle. 

It is the latter Mantle tattoo that is the subject of the recently verified variation. Bleam, who probably holds in inventory more 1950s-1960s mainstream Mantles than any other dealer, has discovered that the "red triangle" Mantle can be found with the overall color of the "back" (the side with the advertising and instructions) printed in either red or yellow.

According to Bleam's informal surveying, the yellow-back version is considerably scarcer than the red. Once more collectors are made aware of the variation and more reports of relative scarcity are forthcoming, Bleam said he expects the value of the yellow-back version could settle in at around 2-3X the red-back version. The Standard Catalog currently lists both the Mantle yellow band and red triangle types at $325 in Near Mint.

"Mini" 1960 Post Grape-Nut Flakes Mantle: Fooling collectors since 1982

It happened again recently.

Somebody was fooled by a fake 1960 Post Grape-Nut Flakes cereal box back Mickey Mantle that I had a hand in creating 30 years ago.

This time, however, it wasn't an unwary buyer at a local card show or on eBay, it was a major auction company.

In offering a complete set of the 10 box back "cards" that appeared on cereal boxes in 1960, the auction lot also included what was described as "a 6-1/2" x 9" ad card with Mickey Mantle that was hand cut from either some type of store display piece or more than likely from a Post cereal box announcing the upcoming promotion."

Actually, what this is, is a page from a book that I wrote in 1982 titled Baseball Cards A Collector's Guide.

The book was issued in a 100-page, spiral-bound 8-1/2" x 11" format by Beekman House books of New York. I wrote the book, and provided the 100+ cards illustrated in black-and-white and color, for the folks at Consumer Guide.

Many of the pictures printed in the book were actual-size photos that we had taken at Baseball Cards magazine in the early years of cards from the Larry Fritsch collection. The '60 Post Mantle panel was one of those.

The original box-back cards were printed in a 7" x 8-3/4" size including the wood "frame" around the color portrait photo. As it appeared in the Collector's Guide book, however, the card portion appeared in a reduced size of 5-3/4" x 7-1/8", with the entire panel measuring 6-3/4" x 9-1/8". That's about 82% of actual size.

When the page from the book is being offered to somebody as a "rare mini" version or some such, it is glued to a piece of cardboard to give the impression that it is printed on a cereal box.

In actuality, the book page has on its back half of a two-page spread picturing 1956 Topps cards that was printed in an early issue of Baseball Cards.

The "tell" that an undersized 1960 Post Mantle panel is from the Collector's Guide is that there is a poorly cut bottom border at the lower-right; that was on the original Fritsch card that we photographed. Naturally, if someone trims the page down to the wood border, that imperfection won't be visible.

Just remember, all genuine 1960 Post Grape-Nut Flakes box cards measured 7" x 8-3/4. There were no authentic pieces in other sizes, nor advertising or promotional pieces. With a genuine '60 Post Mantle worth hundreds of dollars depending on condition, that's valuable information to keep in mind.

Custom card created for "Mickey Mantle's Caddy"

While recently emailing with my new favorite photo source, Keith Olbermann sent me a Topps scan of Jack Reed, whom he described as "Mickey Mantle's Caddy."

I had never heard of Jack Reed, since by the time he made his major league debut in 1961, I had pretty much transitioned from a baseball fan to an AFL football fan.

So I googled the name and made two discoveries. Jack Reed was only one of three player's who at various times were known as Mickey Mantle's caddy, and, more importantly, Reed was a multi-sport athlete at Ole Miss. He is one of only a handful of athletes to play in a major college football bowl game (Jan. 1, 1953 Sugar Bowl loss to Georgia Tech) and a World Series (1961).

That association with the Rebels sealed the deal . . . I was going to create a Jack Reed custom card.

In case you don't understand the "caddy" reference, it's an old baseball term for a player who is often called as a late-inning defensive replacement and/or as a pinch-runner for an aging or hobbled veteran. Sammy Byrd, who was better-known as "Babe Ruth's legs," was probably the best-known of that type of player, running for the old war horse in the early 1930s. 

Today, with the designated hitter, you don't hear the term any more.

Reed was Mantle's caddy from 1961-63. He followed Bob Cerv in that role, and preceded Ross Moschitto.

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I'll not attempt to give you a full biography of Reed. Thomas Van Hyning did an admirable job of that in the SABR Baseball Biography Project. You can read it here: http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/13225d55 .

I will, however, mention two things:

The first is the baseball highlight for which Reed is best known, outside his role as Mantle's defensive replacement.

Reed's only major league home run won an historic Yankees game. In the June 24, 1962, game at Detroit, Reed didn't even get into the contest before the 13th inning. 

After scoring six runs off Frank Lary in the top of the first, and another in the second, the Yankees were held scoreless for 19 innings as the Tigers battled back to a tie by the bottom of the sixth inning.

Mantle had started the game in right field. Joe Pepitone came in defensively in the seventh. He walked in the eighth and struck out in the 11th. Phil Linz pinch-hit for Pepitone in the 13th, drawing a walk. In the bottom of the 13th, Reed entered the game in right field.

Reed grounded out in the 15th, struck out in the 18th and grounded out again in the 20th. In the 22nd inning, after Maris had walked in front of him, Reed hit a home run off Phil Regan and gave the Yankees a 9-7 lead. Jim Bouton, who had come on in relief in the 16th, held the Tigers and the Yankees won the longest game in their history. 

Second, Reed is one of only a handful of non-pitcher major leaguers to have fewer plate appearances than games played. In his three-year big league career, Reed appeared in 222 games, but came to the plate only 144 times. 

Since Van Hyning's article did such a thorough job of covering Jack Reed, the player, I'll limit myself here to Jack Reed, the card.

Given Reed's tenure with the Yankees, I could logically have chosen to format my custom in any of Topps' issues between 1961-1964. 

I dismissed 1961 because, while Topps was sometimes prescient in giving a card to a player before he had actually appeared in the majors, it didn't happen often. More importantly, Reed has already appeared on a collectors' issue card in a format similar to '61 Topps. 

Likewise, I dismissed 1964 because Topps didn't often print cards of players whose career had ended the previous season.

More pragmatically, and the reason I likewise opted not to go with a 1963 format, is that in 1961, 1963, and 1964, Topps card backs had "complete" major and minor league stats . . . and I didn't have those stats. As I've mentioned before, the new "baseball bible," baseball-reference.com, is not totally comprehensive in some minor league stats of the 1960s and earlier, notably runs and RBIs, which I'd need to recreate a back design for any of those years.

So, almost by default, my Jack Reed custom was going to take the shape of a 1962 Topps card. This was going to be a first for me . . . I'd never previously attempted to make a card in that format.

By amazing coincidence, the first 1962 card I looked at on the www.toppsarchives.com site was Frank Thomas, and the cartoon highlight on the back was perfectly adaptable to a Jack Reed card, requiring only minor date and stat changes.

Creating a template for the front was more challenging. Poring over scans of original 1962 Topps baseball cards I found a considerable diversity in the "color" of the wood-look background. Because of differences in printing registration, some were quite muddy and some had too much of a red tint. Ultimately I found a Roger Maris card that looked "just right" on the Heritage Auctions site. 

You can see the result here.

My Jack Reed custom is by no means his first baseball card. 

It's true, he never made it on a "real" Topps card. I have to wonder whether Reed might have made the cut in 1962 when Topps expanded its baseball set from 589 to 598 if the company hadn't had to add a dozen or so cards each of the expansion Houston Colt .45s and New York Mets.

Both before and after his major league days, Reed was included in issues of the Richmond Virginians, the Class AAA International League farm club of the Yankees.

In 1960, the Virginians used black-and-white player photos of the players, including Jack Reed, on their game tickets. These are quite scarce. In 1966, Royal Crown Cola sponsored a team set of carton inserts with players -- and manager Jack Reed -- of the Columbus Clippers (a AA Yankees affiliate in the Southern Association) featured in b/w photos. These are not as rare as the 1960 Richmond ticket-cards, but finding a specific player when you're looking for him is a formidable challenge.

As a member of two World Championship Yankees teams, Reed did not escape the notice of producers of collectors' issue cards during the last baseball card "boom." 

In 1986, Renata Galasso included Reed in the color version of the 1961-format team set created to honor the '61 champs. Five years later, on the 30th anniversary of the team, Reed was part of a set of Susan Rini art postcards issued by Historic Limited Editions. Both of these cards are plentiful in the hobby market. There may be one or two other latter-day Jack Reed cards that have escaped my attention.

I do notice that Reed must be an amenable autograph signer, there are lots of autographed balls and photos available in the hobby market and via eBay.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a photo of Jack Reed in his Ole Miss football uniform . . . I'm sure I could find room for him in my 1955 All-American "update" set. 

'51 Sporting News yields familiar images

While I was reading microfilm of the 1951 issues of The Sporting News, I espied a couple of familiar images of Mickey Mantle, rendered as black-and-white line drawings by a pair of famous sports artists.


Mickey Mantle was all the rage during spring training in 1951, and there was a lot of ink devoted to him in TSN. One article, in the April 4 issue, featured artwork by Karl Hubenthal that drew heavily on the United Press International photo of Mantle that was the basis of his 1952 Topps card.


An original print of that famous photo, by the way, recently sold for something like $60,000.


Another Mantle image that all serious collectors will recognize was found on Page 1 of the April 25 issue of TSN. The photo of Mantle that was the basis of his 1951 Bowman rookie card was adapted by Willard Mullin (of Brooklyn Bum fame) for yet another feature on the Yankees' can't-miss prospect.


I thought you might enjoy seeing how those iconic baseball card images were used in a contemporary setting.

Eddie Mathews was our Mickey Mantle

One of the advantages of being retired is that I have lots of time to search eBay for items of interest, either for my custom card-making projects, or as fodder for my blog.


One of my regular searches is for baseball and football photos in all of the pertinent eBay categories. I often filter the searches to return only Milwaukee Braves images.


Recently in such a search, I found two Eddie Mathews pictures that reminded me of how much of a baseball hero he was to many of us who grew up in Wisconsin in the 1950s.


Mathews was OUR Mickey Mantle. He was a big moon-faced slugger who, we were convinced, would have made the coolest big brother or uncle a kid from Wisconsin could ever hope for. 


There were lots of parallels in the lives and careers of Mathews and Mantle. They were born within a week of each other in 1931. They came to the majors within a year of each other (Mantle in 1952, Mathews in 1952) amid great fanfare and each retired after the 1968 season. 


They led dissolute lives that contributed to early deaths, Mantle in 1995 at age 63; Mathews in 2001 at age 69.

In the mid-1980s, we (Krause Publications) were of the opinion that the then relatively new National Sports Collectors Convention needed to be something more than a cash cow for individual promoters. We felt it should be a showcase to promote the growth of the hobby. 


Accordingly, we determined to bid to host the show in Milwaukee in 1986. To preview our concepts and gain a little experience, we held the Milwaukee '85 sportscard and memorabilia show in downtown Milwaukee June 29-30. 

The show was a success, such as it was, but it failed to convince the electors at the 1985 National in Anaheim, and the 1986 show was awarded to John and Wanda Marcus in Arlington, Tex.


Since we had already booked the MECCA convention center in Milwaukee for the third weekend in June in 1986, we went ahead and held Milwaukee '86.


Our featured autograph guest was Eddie Mathews. The iconic Milwaukee Braves star had never before returned to town for an autograph event, so his appearance was a big deal among local sports media and hobbyists alike. 


As a souvenir and autograph vehicle for show attendees, we printed up several thousand copies of a 4-1/8" x 5-7/8" glossy postcard featuring a reproduction of the Bill and Bob postcard of Mathews issued in the mid-1950s.


Unfortunately, I never got to meet my childhood hero during the show. I was tied up with operational details and putting out fires. Maybe it was for the best that my memories of Mathews weren't clouded by the realities of 30 years later.


In any event, I was moved by a pair of photos that I saw on eBay. 


One photo shows a 10-year old Milwaukee girl meeting Mathews and having him sign her autograph book at spring training in 1957. I was never an autograph seeker as a youngster, but I would have walked to Florida for the chance to meet Mathews. 


Ironically, when I did have the opportunity to meet the man at Milwaukee '86, and perhaps share a beer and hear some stories in the hospitality room, the boyhood dreams had to give way to adult realities and I missed my opportunity because I had to deal with a perceived security breach on the show floor. 


The other photo shows Mathews in 1978 with his dog, Luke. I'm a dog fancier and always feel a special affinity to ballplayers who share that sentiment. 


I have no interest in buying either photo, but I wanted to share the memories they evoked. 

There's always room for more Jell-O (cards)

Regular followers of my blog know that I recently completed the first phase of custom card creations related to the Post cereal box-back cards of 1961-63.

You can see what was accomplished by scrolling back to my April 24 posting (1961), May 15 (1963) and June 1 (1962).

Today I'm unveiling a spin-off . . . a re-creation of a 1963 Jell-O box.

For many years I had in my collection a never-used 1963 Jell-O "flat" of Frank Lary on a 6-oz. strawberry box. Before selling it recently, I made a high-res scan that I could use as the basis for some new creations.

I started with reproducing -- sort of -- the original 1963 Jell-O Mickey Mantle. I say "sort of" because my Mantle is actually a re-creation. 

If I could have gotten a high-res scan of an original card, I would have done so, but my efforts were unavailing. So I did my best to replicate the format and typography of an original, and dropped in the best scan I could find on the internet of the Mantle pose. 

I'm happy with the work I did on re-doing the typography. Only a really dedicated '63J collector would be likely to spot the subtle differences, and probably only then by having a real card to compare side-by-side.

Because my box so closely parallels the genuine  1963 product. I've added a discrete 2015 copyright notice.

As the culmination of the Jell-O box project, I printed out the complete box, attached it to card stock closely approximating the original, and got out my X-Acto knife and double-sided tape.

Being a past master in the art of box folding from decades of forming up card boxes and USPS Priority Mail boxes, I wanted to see if I could do a creditable job of cutting and pasting my Mantle flat into a 3-D presentation.

With the various fold lines clearly visible on the sheet, the job turned out to be easier than I had dreaded. By scoring the back of the cardboard with my blade, I was able to make generally crisp folds .A torn seam that manifests itself in the lower-left corner of the box back is evidence that I had done a good -- but not a great -- job.

I finished the project by inserting a package of strawberry Jell-O from a current package into my retro box. It gives the newly created box a pleasing heft and sound. 

While I will be offering my complete-box panels to collectors, I won't be offering my origami skills. Those who want to make a box will have to undertake the construction themselves.

Check back tomorrow and you can see my revised version of a 1963 Jell-O Mickey Mantle box and a box for a player who did not make the cut in 1963.