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)

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, 5×7s, 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!

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!

Help a Fellow Collector

In my opinion, one of the best things about blogging is “meeting” tons of new collectors. I may never get to meet these new friends in person (unless I can get to the National in Baltimore in 2010), but I feel like I have gotten to know a few of them pretty well. Even the occassional passer-by who takes a moment to leave a comment on an old post is a welcome acquaintance. It is really cool when I am able to help that person out in some small way. For a few, this has been through trades to help them with set collation. For others, it has just been providing some information consolidated into one place. For a few others, I am hoping to take it to a new level.

A few weeks ago, a fellow collector, Ron, asked if I had any way to help him track down a copy of Mike Michalske’s 1975 Fleer Hall of Fame card, as featured in a past HOF Spotlight post. He noted that he was an old time Packers collector and has been searching for the card for quite a long time. I began searching around with no luck. I was able to locate a few autographed copies for around $100, but nothing else. I guess there is a reason I was only able to find an autographed image for my HOF post.

So I turn to you, my loyal and longtime readers (and you, too, Mr. Occassional Passer-by). If you happen to have a copy of this card you could spare or know where Ron could possibly obtain one, please let me know. For obvious reasons I will not publish his email address, but if you contact me, I will be sure to pass along any possible leads.

Who Wants FREE Baseball Cards?!?

Before I get flooded with requests for bat barrel autographs, two-color patches, and tri-fold relic cards, let me clarify the title of this post:

Some of you may know that my wife and I bought our first house and moved this past summer. While it was overall a decent experience (I will not bore you with details of the negotiations from hell), the most dreaded portion of the entire process (other than acquiring a splendid 30-year mortgage) was packing and moving all of our stuff. Granted, we were only a few months over a year removed from college, so we did not have mountains of things and were still in the mindset of packing as efficiently as possible. However, it was still a pain.

One of the biggest surprises for me in the moving process was just how much my card collection had exploded in the year we were in our apartment. I went from having a single computer monitor box somewhat full of cards, boxes, binders, etc. to having the same monitor box completely stuffed, along with 3 other medium sized boxes stuffed with cards. Realizing that I only planned to continue collecting cards, I knew I needed a solution. Part one involved my fear of becoming a hoarder and the consequential decision to throw away all of my empty boxes and wrappers (except maybe one from each set I have hand collated). I have not done this yet as I am still trying to reorganize and catalog my entire collection, but I have made the definitive decision to some day soon throw it all out.

Step two involves my old baseball cards. As any other American boy, I collected baseball cards when I was a kid. As a result, I have a slew of cards from the “junk wax” era simply occupying space in my home office. I have tried to come up with alternative uses for my cards, but quite frankly, there are just too many. As I now know my interest in baseball cards is dead, it is time to rid myself of my entire baseball card collection. But how should I do this? I figure I have a few options:

1) Break the entire collection into teams, regardless the count of each team. Hold a giveaway on this blog that simply asks readers to tell me which is their favorite baseball team to collect. The first person to respond for each team would get every card I own for that team. Obviously this would be geared towards helping out team builders and would be the simplest method of handing out the entire stash. It does, however, fall directly into a first-come first-served basis, so perhaps a die-hard Yankees fan is snuffed simply because he responded after a casual Yankees fan hoping for some priceless Don Mattingly or Babe Ruth reprint cards.

2) Create sample “grab bags” containing 50-100 random cards. Hold some sort of contest allowing all readers an equal chance to win. The winners would be awarded a hierachy of prizes where the 1st person might get 10 “packs,” the 2nd person gets 7 “packs,” the 3rd 5, and so on and so forth. I could also hold several contests to help add an interaction element to the blog, get several groupings of readers involved, and I wouldn’t have as many large packages to ship. This would be geared more towards “priceless” cardboard fans.

3) Break entire collection into team sets, but this time further break teams into groups of 50. Either hold contests that are a mix of options 1 and 2 above, or try to sell them on eBay for a few dollars. I could also try selling the random “grab bags” from option 2. This would open up to the much wider audience of eBay, as well as help me to cover shipping and supply expenses.

4) Throw the whole darn thing away at the same time the empty boxes and packs go. They aren’t worth anything more than simple kindling and I sorta doubt any one wants me to mail them my garbage (sorry, Joe, I did say “garbage”).

The only problem with all of this is that when I take a few fleeting glimpses inside the boxes, I am reminded of the hours upon hours I spent on the living room floor or my bed organizing, sorting, reorganizing, and studying each of those cards. I can remember the sheer excitement I had they day I thought I had a pristine T206 Honus Wagner card (which I quickly learned was actually a very cheap reproduction of the legendary card). I vividly remember giggling every time I flipped over a Mookie Wilson card, because his name was so close to Cookie and started with a “Moo”, like a cow, which produces milk, which is great with Cookies. I recall being so proud of my late 80s Donruss cards of Darren Daulton and Lenny Dykstra, my two favorite players of my youth. But in the end, they do not mean anything to me at this point in my life and really are a waste of space.

Wow. Writing that, I just a great idea. As I sort through the whole mess of cardboard into team or random groups, I should scan all the cards that remind me of specific things. It will make for great rainy day posts and will serve as a reminder of those simpler times, even AFTER I give them all away (or burn them to make Rob happy).

Anywho, now that this post is absurdly long, please answer the following poll and leave any comments you feel necessary.

Omnipotent

Back in the mid-to-late 90s, I was in the midst of my first affair with sports cards. At the time, I was really into basketball cards and, as I’ve said before on this blog, would often buy retail boxes or packs at my local K-Mart. In 1997, I picked up my brother’s lawn mowing job when he went off to college. Suddenly, I was earning $6 every week or so, however often the man’s lawn needed to be mowed. As a kid, I didn’t have any living expenses, so pretty much all of my money went towards buying cards. I remember buying a lot of 1997/98 basketball cards. As I ripped through pack after pack, looking for Michael Jordan insert cards and Tim Duncan rookies, I noticed one odd fellow with one heck of an interesting name. Below are two of this guy’s rookie cards I pulled that year:

Click image for a full sized scan

Holy crap! I didn’t know God played in the NBA! The young man from Providence College certainly has a divine name, but considering he only played one season in the NBA, he obviously did not have one hell of a jumpshot. If you’re curious about this enigmatic being, you can read his “official biography” on Wikipedia here (anyone in the world can edit it, so you know it’s true). Apparently this professional vegabond taught Kobe a thing or two about crossover dribbles.

Saldy, one poignant fact remains for Washington fans: even God could not help the Wizards win.