Posted By:
Josh EvansI was on the original Gordon Reid field at Brimfield in July of 1984 and picker extraordinaire Kenny Chapman pointed in the direction of a sports “collection” that was on an adjoining field and I ran in the general direction like a chicken looking for a great sports collection. I got there to see a table literally stuffed with sports treasures from an Albany sportswriter(Ruth signed ball and photo, hundreds of felt pennants, ton of books and pubs, and a lot more which literally filled the bottom of his van). I negotiated to buy the whole thing for $2500 and got the second load (half a van full) for $1500 a couple of days later. I took it all to the National in Los Angeles and I think I got a princely $750 for the Ruth signed stuff. I will never forget Don Steinbach and Pat Quinn monitoring my table like tag team wrestlers with at least one of them there at all times while I set up.
In this morass of stuff was a stack of about 150 of these very DuPont Cavalcade cards. Gosh, I sold those things for years for anywhere from $10-25 each. And yes I always assumed they were circa 1948 because of all the memorabilia that came out on Ruth during that time (his death) combined with DuPont being a TV station. Besides they look 1940s.