Newsletter - 2023-07-08

Saturday, 1st July 2023

Now this clue was simply because Derby County played at The Baseball Ground, or, rather, at Ley`s Baseball Grounds, as it was from 1890. It was called that because it was owned by Sir Francis Ley, who owned a local ironworks, and the ground was named for Derby Baseball Club, who played there until 1898. However in 1896 he allowed Derby County Football Club to play there as well. Then in 1924 Derby County became the owners, maybe he died, I will find out. They stayed there until 1997, though their reserve squad stayed on for six more years, And then, in 2003, the stadium which has brought so much pleasure and emotion to so many people, was demolished.

So here we have Roy Leslie McFarland, a Liverpudlian born in April 1948. He played almost four hundred and fifty games for Derby County, then went on to manage many teams, including them. 

If you look at the Trading Card Database /McFarland you will immediately notice, rather amusingly, that one picture was used on several of his early cards. But this set is more artistic, and it is instantly reminiscent of another set where the players were somewhat stylised in appearance. And what do you know, that set was also issued by the same newspaper, The Sun. However our cards, the first ever cards issued by that publication, were circulated almost a decade before the more famous set of a thousand "Soccercards".  And presumably The Sun learned from the public, who were not too keen on the plain blank back showing here, for those "Soccercards" have descriptions printed on their reverses. 

Apparently, according to a reader, the cards were not included with the paper but instead followed the German style where you had to collect coupons or tokens and send those in. What came back looked a lot different to our card, for it was a long strip of cards, attached by small joining strips, and this had to be cut into the separate cards. Some people cut the cards completely to shape making them a standard oblong, and others cut through the middle of the fixing strips so that a bit remains poking out from the edge. Perhaps they were thinking of posterity, that this information about their arrival would be retained. When the strip arrived the teams were actually in alphabetical order, but once separated this system was lost and gets forgotten.

Sunday, 2nd July 2023

Now clue number two was for Chicago, where the World`s Fair 1933, which included the exhibition All Star game, was held.

You may be surprised by one fact, because the actual name of this event was not "The World`s Fair" at all, it was the far grander "Century of Progress International Exposition" - but now you know why the former, shorter, title stuck.

The "Century" was for the City of Chicago, which was a hundred years old. However I am unsure of the "Century" that is referred to, because it was an area lived in by the Native Americans since the dawn of time. The first non native-owned farm was built there in the 1780s. And Chicago became an incorporated city in 1837. However there was an 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which kind of made the local tribes think they were giving their long held ancestral land to the government for the greater good.  And I think that must have been what was being commemorated

In the original John Player reference book RB.17, issued in 1950, this set is described as : 

50.     CITIES OF THE WORLD. Small cards. Fronts in colour. Backs with descriptive text. Home issue. Numbered on fronts. Series of 50.
A) Grey on smooth board.
B) Mauve on smooth board.
C) Mauve on matt board.
Messrs. Player`s records show date of issue as 1894. Although one of the printings may have come out in that year, most of the cards found in collections appear to indicate issue rather later, perhaps 1898-1900. 

It is fairly obvious that the colours refer to the reverse, but there is another odd thing here, that being the space after the 50., for there is usually a code number, which in this case is 50., then the number of cards in the set, which again would have been 50. If it were Eric Gurd writing it, I would imagine that he had seen the first 50 and not been able to tell that there was not two. A bit like you may have noticed with me, in that when there is a brackets sign and the next word begins with C that C is often missing because whist they are dancing about in abandon I see the "(" twice, as both the bracket sign and the "C" of the following word. 

Now this listing is slightly changed in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, to :

CITIES OF THE WORLD. Sm. Nd. (50)
A. Back in grey
B. Back in mauve, white or toned board.

And that change, from three sets to two, seems to suggest that there were not enough to make up that many complete sets of both versions, so a set.  

Monday, 3rd July 2023

So for our last clue, another footballer, and this card should have brought you the "All Stars" part of the theme.

And before I race ahead, when this card originally appeared on Monday I asked you to have a think about the fact that this is not the only set of "All Stars" which John Benjamin Toshack appeared on - and whether you knew, or could find, the other. Well the answer is Golden Wonder "Soccer All Stars", which was issued in 1978 with potato crisps, and in which card 11 was John Toshack, Liverpool and Wales. We also tracked one down for you to have a look at, at CardhawkUK/Toshack 

And if you want to see the other 63 cards that he appeared on, nip over to The Trading Card Database/Toshack

Now an apology, of sorts, because yes, I know, we have had this set before, but within it there are sections which look a bit different to the rest, kind of sets within a set.

The first of those sub sets deals with Club Histories, which we will have to use in the near future - though they say "Team Leaders" on the front. They cover cards 101-120. The teams included are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Bristol City, Coventry City, Derby County, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester United, Middlesborough, Newcastle, Norwich City, Queens Park Rangers, Stoke, Sunderland, West Bromwich, and Wolverhampton Wanderers - but they are not strictly in alphabetical order within the set. Most of the cards here have four portraits of players in head and shoulders format, two top and two bottom with the team caption as a long strip in the middle, but Leeds, Manchester United and Newcastle have the card split into six boxes, five holding players and the top left one having the team caption box. Would be interested to hear if any others are also six pictures. 

The other sub set is this one, "Shoot!Goal All Stars" and this covers cards 232 to 247. The players there are Kevin Beattie (England), George Best (Northern Ireland), Mick Channon (England), Kenny Dalglish (Scotland), Gerry Daly (Eire), Gerry Francis (England), Brian Flynn (Wales), John Greig (Scotland), Gordon Hill (England), Joe Jordan (Scotland), Kevin Keegan (England), Don Masson (Scotland), Colin Todd (England), John Toshack (Wales), Dave Watson (England). Again the cards are not in alphabetical order within the set. 

Now there is an interesting theory that I have been told of and that is relating to the fact that this set had something to do with the popular football magazine "Shoot!" and quick research proves that in the 1970s "Shoot!" actually merged with another magazine called "Goal", after which it was sold as "Shoot/Goal". But I have not tracked down yet the date of that merger. 

Tuesday, 4th July 2023

Here we have Jimmie Dykes, though this is wrong, for his name was James Joseph Dykes, and he abbreviated it to Jimmy. He was born in 1896 and made his debut for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1918, staying with them until 1931, then moving to the Chicago White Sox, whose stadium, Comiskey Park, was used to host the 1933 All Stars game. He was third baseman here, but had also played second base, and he would go on to become a coach and a manager. In fact he is featured on the 1951 set of Bowman Gum "Baseball Picture Cards" - card 226 - in his managerial role for the Philadelphia Athletics, though he also, first, managed the Chicago White Sox, winning just one short of nine hundred games. 

The Trading Card Database / Jimmy Dykes has almost a hundred and fifty cards of him, starting in 1921. And you will notice that several cards make the same spelling error with his name.

National Chicle Gum Company were based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but the "chicle" part of their name has a very long history, for it is Spanish for Gum, and was manufactured from special trees that grew in South and Central America. Funnily, the word chicle does not mean chewing gum specifically, but any sticky substance. However the production and chewing of this chicle was well known to both the Aztec and the Maya as a breath freshener.

This set is lengthy for its time, and it was issued gradually over three years, 1934 to 1936. However there has been some research done at dating the statistics on the reverse, and this has led to dates being recorded for each card, which is how we get 1935 for this one. There are also quite a lot of cards with different coloured text, for some reason, maybe to denote reprints, and so purists call this a set of 170 not 108. 

The cards are slightly off square, at 2 3/8" x 2 7/8", and are very well drawn. In addition they are shots of players in action rather than the portraits which often appear for sports stars. They must have appealed greatly to small boys, and so they are hard to find in mint condition.

Wednesday, 5th July 2023

George Herman "Babe" Ruth was also on the American League side at Comiskey Park, playing as an All Star, though his usual team was the New York Yankees. He was right fielder and was forever immortalised In the bottom of the third innings when he hit a home run - the first one to be struck in an All Star game. He also made the save of the match by catching a ball that everyone thought would go over the wall and allow the National League to even up the score. In the end these two things almost certainly led to the American League winning the event.

Now as for the card I am struggling. I do know that there are two other variations of the set, not just this white, for I have seen it with the outer edge in black or gold. If anyone out there can help with some card info please do! 

Thursday, 6th July 2023

Another player from the American League side at the 1933 All Star game, this is the famous Lou Gehrig for the New York Yankees, and he played first base in that game. 

Many people know of him but few know that he was born in New York and called Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig, though he anglicised the two forenames to Henry Louis, and played as Lou. He only played for seventeen seasons, all of them for the New York Yankees, from 1923 until 1939 - however this was over two thousand games. But he did not, as you may be thinking, have his career ended by the Second World War, but by an illness, which was not understood at the time but now is known a bit more about, and is actually called after him, "Lou Gehrig`s disease". He was only thirty six, and he died, from the disease, just two years later. 

You can look him up on wikipedia, but the best website is actually called LouGehrig.com - it has a biography, and a photo gallery, and is excellent reading. 

This set is a modern one, only dating from 2021. The "Diamond Kings" title refers to the fact that the pitch where baseball is played is called a diamond. However it is one of those modern sets with innumerable permutations, including autographs and "relics", these being pieces of clothing worn by the stars etc., so my advice is just to nip along to The Cardboard Connection/PDK and check their excellent listings out.

If you look carefully, you will find Artists Proof versions of these cards -these have a special solid box on the front of each card and they are all signed, but they are scarce as only twenty of each are done, five going to the artist so that he can keep them or give them to people who have done him some service, and fifteen of which are released into the general market.

Friday, 7th July 2023

And, finally, we have a player from the other side, the American League.

This is Charles James "Chick" Hafey, of the Cincinnati Reds, and there is a very fascinating fact about him that you might be missing - for he was one of the first baseball players to wear glasses in play - and why it was allowed was for medical reasons. However if you find earlier cards of him, he may not be wearing them, because for the first five years of his career he did not use them. The eyesight problems seem to have started a couple of years after he started playing with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1924, and I have not been able to find out why. Perhaps it was as simple as staring into the sun in order to catch the ball which would come out through it. 

You can see an even better card of him with the rounded frame glasses courtesy of the P.S.A./ Chick Hafey. 

He was born in 1903, or 1904, stories vary, some even say he changed his age to appear younger which seems rather vain. And he was one of eight children, one of whom also played baseball.  But Chick started his sporting years with American Football, and moved into baseball later. . 

You can read of his entire life at The Society for American Baseball Research / Chick Hafey 

I have to say I really like this set, with the giant baseball players dwarfing the stadium and the other players running about like ants.  However I am not entirely sure if I am misleading you with the title, for most sellers simply call this DeLong 1933. But I did find someone who called it "Play Ball", though strictly speaking this is the name of the product "Play Ball Gum". Anyway, time marches on, so I have stuck there, waiting to be educated.

Now I will say that this set has been reprinted, so be very careful. Though the truth is that you can tell the difference quite easily if you look, for the originals are bright and vibrant and the reprints seem to be rather washed out. The other way to tell is that the text on the reprint is much clearer and easier to read. .