Back in The Post War Cards Newsletter #28, leading into describing a few new to the hobby 1952 Topps Baseball Salesman Samples, I wrote, “As the name implies, salesman-sample sports card panels were used by salesmen as samples to vendors (e.g. grocers and candy-store owners) to illustrate an upcoming release of cards to promote sales. These panels were produced in limited numbers, making surviving samples quite rare.”
I continued writing, “Topps issued them between 1952 and 1967, Bowman gave them out in 1954 and 1955, Fleer had one for Ted Williams’ set in 1959, and you could say Playball had a sample in 1939 as well.”
Given a bump in sample popularity along with a lot of misconceptions about them, I’ve decided to start researching salesman samples more seriously with the goal of printing a Post War Cards Magazine dedicated to the topic. I’m still doing my research, and I need to learn more about formatting and publishing, but I’d love to hear from folks about delivery preferences. I will definitely distribute a print copy (I’m the hobby library guy, after all), but would people be interested in digital versions as well?
Right now, I’m thinking about using Affinity Publisher for formatting and Mixam to print them. But please let me know if you’ve got any experience down in the comments with recommendations in case I’m heading down a bad path.
In terms of hobby writing, I published eight new articles and made 19 archive additions here on PostWarCards.com. I also issued four Post War Cards Newsletters over on Substack. I’ve linked all the new material below.
Articles Published in April
Here are the 8 articles I published on the blog this month.
- Topps File Sets Part 2: Reselling History – Notable Sales of Topps File Albums
- Unwrapping The History of O-Pee-Chee Hockey Cards: A Look At The Early Wrapper Variations
- Topps File Sets Part 3: Individual File Copy Binder Pages
- From Regional Rarity to National Treasure: The Evolution of Jim Brown’s Kahn’s Wieners Cards
- Topps File Sets Part 4: Exploring Individually Slabbed Vault Copies of Topps Baseball, Football, and Hockey Cards
- Examining the Allure of the 1952-53 Parkhurst Hockey Set and Album
- Beyond the Junk Wax Era: The Scarce 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Rack Packs
- Kit Young’s Advertisements for Stan-The-Man’s Official 1964 Rack-Um-Up Bat Rack
The Unopened Archive
Here are the 13 sets I added to the Unopened Archive in April:
- 1933 Hamilton Gum
- 1933-34 O-Pee-Chee A V304A
- 1934-35 O-Pee-Chee B V304B
- 1935-36 O-Pee-Chee C V304C
- 1936-37 O-Pee-Chee D V304D
- 1937-38 O-Pee-Chee E V304E
- 1937 O-Pee-Chee Batter Ups
- 1940 R145 Gum Inc. Superman
- 1940 R146 Leader Novelty Superman
- 1978 OPC Superman The Movie
- 1978 Topps Superman The Movie
- 1982 OPC ET
- 1982 Topps ET
I’m constantly updating pages, so check back on your favorites from time to time. For example, I just learned about this 1961 Topps Football 1 Cent Non-Repeating Wrapper’s existence.
The Oddball Archive
Here are the six sets I added to the Oddball Archive in April:
- 1959 Kahn’s Wieners Football
- 1960 Kahn’s Wieners Football
- 1961 Kahn’s Wieners Football
- 1962 Kahn’s Wieners Football
- 1963 Kahn’s Wieners Football
- 1964 Kahn’s Wieners Football
The Post War Cards Newsletter
- The Post War Cards Newsletter #29
- The Post War Cards Newsletter #30
- The Post War Cards Newsletter #31
- The Post War Cards Newsletter #32
And finally, thanks for reading PostWarCards; if there is a topic you’d like me to write about or a set you’d like me to prioritize for either archive, please reach out to me.
Happy collecting!