I found the cards while searching on Sportlots, but had never heard of them before. And they are the lowest quality cards in my entire collection!
I dug around the web and the Standard Catalog to find out what I could about the set. The cards were sold in 1969 in gas stations in the southern US. I was 7 and living in the Chicago burbs in 1969, so I never saw them.
When you hear "playing cards" you think of the standard card size of 2 1/2" by 3 1/2", printed on a sturdy, plastic type of paper. But not these. They are very small, only 1 5/8" by 2". That makes them very difficult for any adult sized hand to use. Even worse, they are printed on regular, thin paper. Shuffle them once and they will be all creased. The backs of the cards are plain, with nothing printed on them at all. I wonder if anyone ever played an actual card game with them?
The only good thing the cards have going for them is their checklist. Pretty much every star of the era was included in the set. There were three Cubs; Ernie, Billy and Ron.
Still working through your blog in order! Have you seen the version of these with a checkerboard back? Although they're mentioned in the Standard Catalog, I'd never seen one until recently, when some guy got the whole deck graded and started selling them on Ebay. I have the only Ernie Banks (it'll get added to the Master Set along the way), and I tipped off the top Santo collector, who picked up that one and had it added to the Santo Master Set.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the catalog listing but never the cards
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