A Look Back: 1894 Mayo

As the card companies continue to deliver a bumper crop of retro-themed (recycled) set designs and concepts, I thought it would be good to turn around and look into the Hobby’s storied past to learn a bit more about these vintage sets. In a way, it will be like remembering the aluminum cans that became a swing set or, perhaps a better analogy, the 1957 Chevy that became a batch of die-cast elephants (because the companies are generally taking beautiful and original designs and recycling them into common junk). To kick things off, let’s take a look back at the legendary 1894 Mayo set:

In 1894, the P.H. Mayo tobacco company produced the first ever set of collectible cards to feature only football players, the 1894 Mayo Cut Plug set. The 35-card set only contained players from the “Big Three” Ivy League schools, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, as these colleges were by far the most dominant in the young sport at the time. The simple cards were small by modern standards, measuring just 1 5/8″ x 2 7/8″ and featured a sepia-toned portrait on a black frame that contained the player’s last name and school and the Mayo Cut Plug logo. The card backs were completely blank and black and the cards were not numbered in any fashion. One of the cards did not identify the player shown and early checklists simply listed this card as “Anonymous”, although the player has since been identified as John Dunlop of Harvard. The cards were distributed in tins of P.H. Mayo chewing tobacco.

1894 Mayo Cut Plug cards featuring Harvard, Princeton, and Yale football players

Over 100 years later, card companies began creating sets that paid tribute to the 1894 May Cut Plug set. The first to do so was Donruss in 2002 when they created the Donruss 1894 set that was inserted into packs of 2002 Gridiron Kings. The set actually holds fairly true to the original design. The card fronts feature a black-and-white portrait (rather than sepia-toned) of the player on a black frame that contains the player’s full name (rather than his last name), position (in place of the player’s team/college), and his team’s logo (in place of the Mayo Cut Plug logo). This set also replaced the “For Chewing and Smoking” motto in the lower right-hand corner with “For Collecting & Trading”. Rather than plain black backs, the 2002 Donruss 1894 set featured a foil stamped serial number #/1,000, a card number (MC-#), and various manufacturer logos. For a great side-by-side comparision, please click here. Donruss repeated the set in 2003 Gridiron Kings, with the only notable change being the cards were serial numbered to 600.

2002 Gridiron Kings Donruss 1894 #MC-7 Emmitt Smith

In 2008, Topps created a new 1894 Mayo throwback set. While standard-sized, the card fronts actually held fairly true to the original set with the only notable changes being full color player portraits and the retention of “For Collecting and Trading” motto used by Donruss rather than the original “For Chewing and Smoking” motto of the original 1894 Mayos. Similar to the hugely successful Allen & Ginter baseball set, 2008 Topps Mayo included many short print subjects and a host of various insert cards. One of these inserts was a mini parallel that replicated the small size of the original 1894 set and included a black-and-white portrait. The product was however marred by an inability to follow through with pre-release checklists, especially for autograph subjects.

2008 Topps Mayo & 2008 Topps Mayo Mini #111 Adrian Peterson

In 2009, Topps again made a Mayo throwback set, only this time they did not hold true to the classic set. The standard sized base set features full-color portraits on a white frame that barely resembles the 1894 design. The set much more closely resembles the popular Allen & Ginter baseball releases. Topps once again included a mini parallel that brought back the correct card dimensions and black-and-white photo, but the new white border was still present. Similar to 2008 Topps Mayo (and Allen & Ginter), the set included a plethora of short prints and various inserts.

2009 Topps Mayo & 2008 Topps Mayo Mini #191 Michael Crabtree

While no modern throwback set has been able to quite recapture the magic of the 1894 Mayo Cut Plug set, it is nice to see companies pay tribute to the founding father of football card sets, even if they are just recycling a classic design (and failing to get it right).

For more information on the original 1894 Mayo set, please visit these sites:
Nearmint’s Vintage Football Card Blog
The Harvard-Yale Football Gallery
Vintage Card Prices – 1894 Mayo Gallery (very nice gallery of all 35 card images, except for the Anonymous/John Dunlop card)

Heisman Highlight: Les Horvath

Name: Les Horvath
Position: Quarterback
College: Ohio State Buckeyes
Class: Senior
Winning Year: 1944 – 10th Award
Official Heisman Profile: Click Here
 
 
 

Interesting Notes: Horvath won the Heisman in a very close competition and edged out two Army sophomore standouts…led OSU to an undefeated season by superior skills in passing, rushing, blocking, kicking, and tackling…graduated with degree in dentistry…served in Navy as dental officer and assistant football coach…played for a few years in the pro ranks…established a successful dental office while coaching when his playing years ended…was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1969.

Featured Card: 1948 Bowman #41. Despite never being a professional standout, Horvath was included in the 1948 set from Bowman, several years before many of his Heisman winning peers who had to wait until the 1955 Topps All American set. There are not many copies currently available on eBay, but all of them fall right into the $20 ballpark.

NOTE: You can find all of my Heisman Highlight Features by clicking the post banner above.

Dealing with Oversized Cards

As a player collector, it is obviously very important to me that all of my Emmitt Smith (and Curtis Conway) cards stay together in an organized manor. While this is not usually a difficult task (except for the fact that my Emmitt collection is outgrowing the tin I am currently using to house it), there are a few bumps in the road. One of my pet peaves is oversized cards. I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with these things? Are they Emmitt cards? Obviously yes. Are they cool? Sort of. Is it remotely necessary that they are so oversized? NO! At least with some of my non-standard sized cards, I can still put them into a normal top loader and file them away in order (like Goudey and Mayo throwbacks). But not oversized cards. No sir. They require their own special top loader and must be taken out of their proper order and given a special spot…stuffed down along the side of the tin beside all of the other normal cards.

Seriously, are these necessary?

Click each image for a full-sized scan

To all of you other player (or team) collectors out there: what do you do with oversized cards? I know you all have box toppers, 5x7s, and other unneccessarily large cards. How do you cope? Do you just let them hang outside of the traditional borders of your collection? Do they reserve a special storage designation? Are you just not as organizationally anal as I am?

Please help!

My Christmas Card Shananigans

Christmas is a great time of year. Hopefully we all agree that the real reason for the season is to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Without Him, none of this would matter. A nice perk to the holidays is gifts (be honest, you like them as much as the next guy). I am going to risk sounding cliché and state that for as much as I enjoy receiving gifts, I enjoy giving gifts just as much, if not more. There is just something about putting thought into a present for a loved one and then watching them light up when they open it. It makes me feel all warm inside. I like that feeling.

As the youngest in a family of five, gift giving has become much simpler in recent years. We still love each just as much, we just realize there are more important things than giving each other meaningless objects to sit around the house. For this reason, gift cards for entertainment are great. It gives the person you love a chance to get out, maybe make a memory or two, and to top it off, not spend any money (unless you were a cheap skate and didn’t get a large enough gift card). The problem with gift cards, at least for me, is they are about the most anti-climatic gifts ever. While kids get to rip into large boxes full of goodies, you are left handing your brother a piece of paper that says, “Hey man, I love you this many dollars worth.” What joy. How do we make gift cards more fun to give (and hopefully to receive)? We incorporate a gag gift into the presentation.

Take last year for example. I wanted to give my wife a gift certificate for a massage because she is on her feet all night at work and while my back rubs are numerous, they suck. I admit it. I didn’t just want to hand her the email print out or even put it in a greeting card, so I tried to get creative. I pulled out my 2007 Upper Deck Rookie Premiere box, retrieved all 30 cards from my Rookie Premiere binder and put them back into the box. I hid the gift certificate under the plastic tray, replaced the tray and cards, and then sealed the box in heat shrunk wrapping. On Christmas morning, I told her as I handed the box to her that this was a special present. When she ripped off the paper, I could tell she was a little confused why she was holding a box of cards. I explained that she had mentioned she would like to understand my hobby a little better and now she had her own small set of cards to look at. She still seemed skeptical, so I told her to at least flip through the cards. She began leafing through them as I pointed out that Brady Quinn still hadn’t lived up to his hype and that Adrian Peterson was the best card of the set. She was acting interested, but I could tell she was still confused why I bought her cards for Christmas. I took the box lid and said, “Hey, this says to look for rare autographed cards randomly inserted into the sets. Were any of those autographed?” She flipped through them again and said that none were. I then said, “Well, maybe they didn’t want to leave out one of the cards since you are buying a full set. Maybe they put it under the plastic tray.” When she lifted the tray out, she immediately saw the gift certificate, and the cards became an afterthought. When I said the cards were really mine and that I wanted them back, she admitted she had no clue why I had given them to her and that she was faking her interest…because I hadn’t noticed. At least we had a good laugh about it.

This year’s target: Mom and Dad. Later today, they will be receiving a fairly large wrapped rectangle. When they rip off the paper, they will see they have received a box of 2006 Upper Deck Exquisite football cards. They will open the box and slide out a much fancier hinged box. Inside they will find a small grey box, which will be filled with 10 completely blank decoy cards. Once they flip through all of them to ensure they are all blank on both sides, I will throw in a “That’s odd. I wonder if they had a packaging problem at the factory. Is there anything under that plastic tray?” (Note: a good card box hoax will include a nicer box that includes mutiple parts, not just a basic box from Upper Deck Series 1). Under the tray they will find an unmarked envelope. Inside the envelope? A gift certificate to a local restaurant, in no way related to Upper Deck or cards in general.

I’m not sure how I will continue this next year or who the target will be, but I have a feeling I will have fun planning it out.

Do any of you have similar stories about giving fake gifts, pretending to give cards to non-collectors, or otherwise disquising gift certificates? I would love to hear other examples…

A Christmas Classic

[Excerpt from A Charlie Brown Christmas]:

Schroeder: This is the music I’ve selected for the Christmas play.
[Schroeder plays Fur Elise]
Lucy: What kind of Christmas music is that?
Schroeder: Beethoven Christmas music.
Lucy: What has Beethoven got to do with Christmas? Everyone talks about how “great” Beethoven was. Beethoven wasn’t so great.
[Schroeder stops playing]
Schroeder: What do you mean Beethoven wasn’t so great?
Lucy: He never got his picture on bubblegum cards, did he? Have you ever seen his picture on a bubblegum card? Hmmm? How can you say someone is great who’s never had his picture on bubblegum cards?
Schroeder: Good grief.

Well Lucy, let’s just say it’s obvious you were speaking in 1965 and not 2009:

2009 Allen and Ginter #83

MERRY CHRISTMAS, CHARLIE BROWN!

Fantasy Focus: Week 15

As you gear up for this weekend’s upcoming games by realigning your fantasy rosters to optimize matchups, let’s take a quick look back at last week’s studs. (Note: Points listed are directly from the First and Goal Fantasy League and may not represent point totals in your individual leagues)

QB: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers — In another quarterback shootout (resulting in another close loss), Rodgers had the upper fantasy hand this time around (unlike Week 8). While completing just 26 of 48 passes, Rodgers did accumulate an impressive 383 passing yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. Tacking on 22 rushing yards and a fourth touchdown, Rodgers ended the day with 35 fantasy points, earning him best QB honors in Week 15.

*Fantasy Stud of the Week*
RB: Jerome Harrison, Cleveland Browns — A relatively unknown rusher, Harrison ran into the record books in Week 15 with a staggering 286 yards and 3 touchdowns (and 12 receiving yards for those of you keeping track at home). Harrison’s ground attack led to the third-highest single-game rushing yardage in league history and broke a Browns team record of 237 yards set by the legendary Jim Brown. His 47 fantasy points shocked many fantasy owners and were more than enough to give Harrison Fantasy Stud of the Week honors.

WR: Joshua Cribbs, Cleveland Browns — Another Brown having a record-breaking day, Cribbs broke and then extended the league career kick returns for touchdown record to eight. His two kickoffs in one game also tied a league record. In total, Cribbs racked up 305 returns yards along with his 2 touchdowns for a total of 27 fantasy points (his 8 rushing yards and 3 receiving yards did not add to his fantasy output). He may not be a true wide receiver, but his performance in Week 15 deserves recognition regardless.

TE: Dallas Clark, Indianapolis Colts — For the second week in a row, Clark was the league’s best tight end. In Week 15, he reeled in 7 receptions for 95 yards and two touchdowns, good for 21 fantasy points. Clark now holds a Colts team-record for career touchdown receptions by a tight end with 41.

K: Matt Prater, Denver Broncos — Prater once again had a solid kicking performance in Week 15, connecting on all four of his field goal attempts, including one in the 40-49-yard range and another from 50+ yards out. Tacking on one PAT, Prater ended the day with 16 fantasy points, best in the league amongst kickers.

D/ST: New York Giants — In a crucial divisional game, the Giants’ defense showed up to play on Monday night. By only allowing 12 points and recording 5 sacks, 3 interceptions, and 1 touchdown, the Giants D scored 21 fantasy points. It may be more of the same for a unit that has featured Michael Strahan and Lawrence Taylor in the past, but it stood out in fantasy leagues as the Giants had the NFL’s best fantasy squad in Week 15.

ROOKIE: Mike Wallace, Pittsburgh Steelers — It’s not often that a receiver who only catches 2 passes and does not return kicks will be honored in the Fantasy Focus. Wallace would like to remind you that it isn’t quantity of receptions, but quality of receptions that earns you a spot on this blog feature. With his two receptions, Wallace had 79 yards and two touchdowns for a total of 19 fantasy points. What makes it even better? His first reception was a 60-yard touchdown on the game’s first play and his second reception was the game-winning 19-yard touchdown as time expired. Now that’s what I call quality.

Check back next week for another edition of Fantasy Focus as we recognize the week’s best fantasy performers. Best of luck to you in your respective fantasy football leagues!

Note: To quickly view all of my Fantasy Focus posts, simply click the Fantasy Focus banner at the top of any such post!