If you ever decide to research regional food sets, you’ll come across the initials MSA on many of them. For example, the 1978 Papa Gino’s Discs baseball card set has MSA printed in small letters towards the bottom of the back of the disc. MSA stands for Michael Schechter & Associates, and in this post, I’ll share some information about MSA and food issue collectibles.
Schechter was an entrepreneur who partnered with various Players’ Unions, so the team logos on many of these oddball cards are airbrushed out. It was cheaper to secure a license from this single source, rather than including Major League Baseball, for example, to include team logos (trademarked) on players’ uniforms or hats.
In an archived Baseball Weekly article, I’ve read that in 1977, Marvin Miller, the MLB Players’ Association president, signed an agreement with Schechter’s Tampa Bay, Florida, firm to allow them to license players’ likenesses. MSA got a 10-25% commission on deals that purportedly generated more than $100M for the players’ union. Later, there was a lawsuit, and in “1989, Schechter agreed to amend his contract, taking a 25% commission on licensing agreements made after Jan. 1, 1989, for the first three years, followed by a 10% commission over the next three years.”
The majority of MSA releases were in partnership with the food industry. The bigger brand oddball and food issues that MSA helped license were Ralston Purina, Kraft Singles, Jimmy Dean, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Slim Jim, M&M’s, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut. Schechter also occasionally brokered deals with popular non-food brands like Sony and Sega.
Hardcore hobbyists may also recognize brands like Buckman’s, Crane, Dairy Isle, and FBI food. Bottom line: If it was a food release without logos, MSA was likely involved.
The back of a 1976 MSA Customized Sports Discs disc shows that they were available to advertisers with MLB players, NBA players, NFL players, tennis players, and other people, places, and things through MSA, Inc in White Plains, New York. The discs were manufactured through Gugler Lithographic Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
While most MSA products were in the baseball market, some other MSA sport products include the 1976 Buckmans Football Discs and the 1976 Coca-Cola Chicago Bears discs. And for basketball, the 1976 Crane Potato Chips discs were also developed in partnership with MSA.
I suspect there are so many more oddball MSA baseball products just because the sport was so popular in the card market compared to other sports at the time.
And regarding oddballs, since most were regionally distributed, some MSA sets are far more challenging to find than others. For example, 1976 Crane Potato Chip discs are relatively common, while the 1976 Red Barn discs are very scarce.
Source information about oddball cards is already pretty tough to find, so information about a broker who licensed the cards, MSA, is, unsurprisingly, equally scarce. But from what we know, Schechter made a pretty good living for himself and the players’ unions by brokering deals to produce oddball sports cards.
If you happen to have other information or corrections to this article, please reach out to me. Eventually, I’d like to publish a printed volume and master checklist about the various MSA sets from the 1970s and 1980s.
Happy collecting!