In Appreciation of a Fellow Collector
I recently picked up a few 1954 Topps cards on BST. They're all stamped "Paul E Newth" on the back, with an address in CT. (See Spahn below.) I figured that only a kid would stamp his name on his cards (my brother used to write his name on the back of his), and so I thought about looking this guy up and mailing him one of his old cards. Looks like it won't be happening, but it is pretty neat to actually know something about the original owner of some of my cards.
Paul E Newth died in 1997 at the age of 54. He was a Vietnam vet, and, as far as I can tell, spent his whole life in Connecticut. He never gave up the collecting bug, but turned to cylindrical phonograph records, rather than baseball cards, as an adult. He worked for a company that distributed newspapers, but doesn't seem to have much of an internet footprint anymore. Assuming that he got the cards when they were issued, he was eleven years old when he stamped them, still a long way from Vietnam or (presumably) phonograph records.
RIP Paul. Thanks for the cards, I'll take good care of them.
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