Posted By:
John SCasey,
Diamond Match produced football player matchbooks from 1933 to 1938. For vintage football collectors, due to lack of material available, the matchbooks are the only option for a collector to obtail period/active pieces of many early NFL players. For matchbooks the photos are attractive and the bios are informative.
In general, 1933's are the most difficult to obtain followed by 1938, 1935, and 1934. 1936 and 1937 matchbooks are not particularly difficult. However, within each set there are some extremely rare examples.
The checklist for 1934, in my estimation, is not complete. There will be an addition to this set in the 2007-08 Football Beckett and I would bet there will be more in the future. Most of the set numbers are divisible by twelve and the '34 set currently stands at 125 (132 would be the next multiple of twelve). Surprisingly, due to their popularity at the time, Bears and Packer players seem to be the most difficult to obtain in the '34 set.
The 1933 has the high dollar examples (and I assume these values will continue to increase) with matchbooks of Cal Hubbard, Arnie Herber, Clark Hinkle, Red Grange, and Bronko Nagurski (plus adozen ohter early stars/HOFers including the owen that I posted). The Herber is next to impossible and if there are 20 examples total I would be surprised. I surveyed four experienced vintage dealers last year and collectively they could only account for six or seven Herbers in the last 20 years (and it is quite possible that that some duplicity existed in their accounting).
Hope that helps.