Card Of The Whenever: A Reprint of a Golden Oldie

1942 Play Ball 1983 Reprint Mel Ott Lifetime Giant

This randomly posted Card of The Whenever is actually a card of two whenevers as it is a reprint of a vintage card I will probably never have in anything above good condition if at all. In the mid 1970s and the early 1980s TCMA (founded in 1976) produced many throwback retro and reprint sets. This card is one of the reprints. The Player represented played for the New York Giants Baseball team, not Football sillies, his entire career and went on to manage them. You know the drill here is the card:

 1942 Play Ball 1983 Reprint 32 Mel Ott NY Giants

(Front and Back)

I am glad that this reprint is pretty true to the original design, no color borders added or colorizing of the original Black and White photo. The back is pretty much inline with the original. Of course the card stock is thinner modern bleached white cardboard and not the old style from the early '40s but you do need to be able to tell the reprint from the originals.

Tobacco and The Military

In February of 2010 (13 FEB) I got some stuff from sportlots including some vintage Non-Sport Tobacco 1939 Players Cigarettes "Uniforms of the Territorial Army" cards. They are about the size of modern minis and there were 50 cards in the set. Originally produced by John Player & Sons in 1939. Player's & Sons was/is a tobacco manufacturer in Nottingham, England. They don't say so but at first I thought the cards I have are the 1990 reprints. I've done a little poking around the internet and it seems the reprints do have markings on the back at the bottom saying they are reproductions and have either a 1990 copyright or 1997. It looks like the reprints have red writing on white backing mine have black ink on white. So I have some of the Originals? They have a little bit of a gloss to them and smell musty (well they did smell musty when I first got them, I think hanging out with some other cards wore their stink off.) If I was sure of them being reprints I might not have gotten them. I usually try to avoid reprints but sometimes for extremely rare or vintage stuff I will get a reprint. Still pretty neat though. If I'm going to get reprints like these I'll try for a full set in NMT condition. Also the originals were supposed to have an adhesive on the upper part of the back for putting into some related album? Anyway here are the cards I got (which might be the originals):

1939 Players Cigarettes "Uniforms of the Territorial Army"

 2 A Sussex Gunner 1588 (Front and Back)

1939 Players Cigarettes "Uniforms of the Territorial Army"
 3 Trained Bands Of London 1643 (Front and Back)

 1939 Players Cigarettes "Uniforms of the Territorial Army" 

12 General Post Office Rifles 1882 (Front and Back)

 1939 Players Cigarettes "Uniforms of the Territorial Army"
 24 1st Wessex Field Almbulance R.A.M.C. 1908 (Front and Back)

In December of 2009 from Ebay I got a Non-Sport vintage tobacco card ain't that sort of repetitive? (vintage tobacco) for $10 It is a 1908 Recruit Little Cigars Military Series T81-Infantry, U.S. Army die-cut "pop-up" . So this is a good contender for the oldest card in my entire collection. It is in pretty good shape still full card appears to have not been fully "cut out" to stand-up. When I was scanning it I almost punched it out while flipping it over to scan the back side. It is standard tobacco mini card size (the size of A&G Minis).On the back there is a dashed line for standing up the card. I suppose you were meant to fold back the outer "background" of the card and that would act as the back support for the "figure". I'll keep an eye out for more of these as long as they are relatively affordable.

1908 Recruit Little Cigars Military Series T81-Infantry, U.S. Army

(Front and Back)

Love/Hate Reprints.

When it comes to reprints, or redoing anything really I almost always prefer the Original over the reprint (remake). For me it is especially true for Trading Cards. The biggest problem of course is some of the really nice Original cards I'd like to own sell at ridiculously outrageous prices, that I wouldn't even be able to purchase a small shaving off of the corner.

As a Kid I flat out refused to have anything to do with reprints. I kept to my guns on the matter until sometime in the very late 1970s to early 1980s when I bought some "retro" "All-Time" commemorative team sets though the mail. Produced by TCMA in various years. I don't have any of those scanned right now, maybe I'll get around to some of them soon. These sets were made somewhat on the cheap and are very simple looking, but they are a great way to get cards of players from yesteryear who you normally would not be able to afford even the cut corner from an original. Now these specialty sets are not really reprints so my self rule of NO REPRINTS was still intact.

When I started discovering trading card "trading" community websites then I started getting some reprints usually from generous traders who will send any old card of your favorite team or players, even if you personally don't want those particular cards. So sometimes you need to just Nod & Smile.

It wasn't until this past May (2009) that I purposely purchased a reprint card knowing that it was one (or actually that it was a high possibility). I got the card from an auction at sportlots.com for $12 plus shipping for a total of $15 the absolute MAXIMUM I ever want to knowingly pay for a reprint card no matter what the card. The seller stated in the auction outright that they didn't know if the card was an original or a reprint so I guessed and was right that it is a reprint. I wish I knew the year of manufacture though.

The card I got was a reprint (I don't know the year of reprinting but suspect it to be sometime in the early 1980s, perhaps made for one of those trading card collection books, except the sides of the card are regular cut not perforations as some of those cards are) of the 1951 BOWMAN Rookie Card of WILLIE MAYS. The card is smaller than today's standard size card and even has some mock card ware to give the feel of an old time card:

1951 Bowman Willie Mays RC (Reprint unknown year)

If anyone knows of possible reprint dates let me know.