There are three links to this week`s theme on this card. The most obvious one is that this is Kyle FIELD, however, if you read the description on the back of the card you will find out that it was named after Edwin Jackson Kyle, a former Dean of Agriculture at the college. Whilst the third link comes in the name of the team whose home field this is, that being the Texas A&M University, for the A&M stands for "Agricultural and Mechanical".
You may have never heard of them, but the University opened in 1876, and was the first public institution for higher learning in the whole state of Texas. It was founded through the Morrill Act of 1862, which asked for public land to be donated in order that educational facilities could be erected thereupon, and, more than that, that those facilities should provide training in agriculture and mechanical arts, but also in military tactics. Four years later the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was established, and the land, some 2,416 acres, was given over. It then took five years to build the premises and the first students, forty of them, arrived on October the 4th 1876 . Their football team was founded in 1894, and they were champions in the 1919, 1927 and 1939 seasons, though the first is still disputed.
In 1919 they added another speciality, still allied to agriculture, with a school for veterinary medicine. However the first African American and female students only arrived in the 1960s, and the military training was dropped at about the same time.
The 1960s also saw the name of the school subtly altered to Texas A&M University. It is said that they did that to get away from the idea that it was an agricultural college but this seems not to be the case as they still specialise in Agribusiness, Agricultural Communications & Journalism, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Education, Agricultural Leadership & Development, Agricultural Systems Management, Animal Science, Biology, Biomedics, Coastal and Environmental Sciences, Ecology and Conservation, Ecotourism, Entomology, Horticulture, Marine Sciences, Maritime Studies, Microbiology, Ocean Sciences, Plant and Soil Sciences, Wildlife Management, and Zoology.
As far as Collegiate Collection, they seem to specialise in cards of College Football. In this case you got eight cards in a pack, but only the cards, no gum.
The earliest pack I have found is for North Carolina in 1989, at which time there seems to have been some link up with Coca-Cola as there is a trifold card inserted in each pack which said that if you needed cards to complete your set you could include proof-of-purchase from Coca-Cola products and a dollar and in exchange they would send you five cards of your choice - though that was limited to four orders only.
Notably though, there is also a logo to say that they were "Officially Licensed Collegiate Products", and on that trifold card it actually says "University of North Carolina has recently authorised Collegiate Collections Inc of Louisville Kentucky to produce a College set of basketball/football trading cards." That seemed to support the theory that this set came first, until I found earlier ones. And we also know that in the same year as our set, 1991, they issued a set about Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so it could be the case that they were already producing cards and branched out into College Football.
There was also a binder available for our set, for three packet wrappers and $2.75, plus $1.75 shipping and handling
The sets we know of so far are :
- Arizona
- Auburn Tigers 1989
- Florida State
- Georgia
- Kentucky`s Finest 1989
- Louisville
- LSU Tigers 1990
- Michigan State - 1st edition
- Notre Dame 1990
- North Carolina - 1st edition 1990, 2nd Edition 1991
- Oklahoma State
- UCLA 1991
- Legends of Indy 1991