Old baseball card advertisements

[BradH]

Something that has always interested me in my card collecting adventures has been to acquire peripheral material related to particular sets that I’m working on. This would include the obvious things like tobacco packages, wax wrappers, empty boxes and original artwork – and the not-so-obvious, including baseball card advertisements, player/card company contracts and photos that contain some sort of scene related to cards from a particular year (old drug store photos with cards in the background, for example).

While I’ve never been a huge collector of the 1950s Bowman issues, I came across these ads today when I was flipping through some old copies of “The Little Red Book.” These are from the 1951, 1954 and 1955 book. The 1951 ad has to be one of the worst-looking ads ever made. For some reason, Bowman did not place an ad in the 1952 or 1953 Little Red Book.

I have a few others at home, but thought I would post these for now. Anyone else have any old ads for baseball cards (or other sports) they can post?

These ads are: Top left - 1951; Top right - 1954; Bottom - 1955

(Sorry for the mysterious blue-ish coloring across the pictures – the camera on my phone is acting up - the paper is actually very clean.)

[Leon]

Neat Bowman ads.....here is one from M101-7...Sporting News.. And a Ruth with a scarce ad back

[Jay Wolt]

Here's a Topps ad during the war years (1944) before their card days

[Tim Zwick]

Here are a few from the 50's - Wilson Weiners....Royal Desserts....Armour Coins

[Bob Lemke]

51 bowman ad maglie 4.18.jpg
The other day I showed you a couple of Mickey Mantle artworks that had appeared in 1951 issues of The Sporting News.

This time I'd like to share some images of ads that Bowman gum ran in TSN. In perusing microfilm of the 1951 issues of the sporting weekly, I found the first ad in the April 18 issue.

The ad featured a picture of Giants pitcher Sal Maglie in the same pose that was carried on his card, #127 in the 1951 Bowman set.

This first ad loosely used the term "Action Color Photos" to describe the cards. In actuality, the cards featured color paintings based on photos.

This initial ad also over-promised the scope of the set, indicating 340 cards. Probably because Topps had begun to sign players for its 1951 Red/Blue Back sets, the actual number of '51B cards issued was 324.

51 bowman jones ad 5.16.jpg
The next ad in the series appeared a month later, in the May 16 issue. It featured "Puddin' Head" Jones. The picture in the ad was quite different from the portrait image of Jones that actually appeared on card #112. The ad still touted 340 cards.

51B ad Raschi 8.22.jpg
The final ad for Bowman cards was late in the season, in the Aug. 22 issue. It promoted the "New Star Series," and now stated "Over 300" cards. Again, the ad showed an action pose of the Yankees pitcher, while the actual card, #25, was a portrait.


I found it interesting that my review of 1951-53 issues of TSN contained ads for Bowman and Red Man cards, but Topps never sprang for the dough to promote its cards to the readers.

[BradH]

Originally Posted by Bob Lemke

This initial ad also over-promised the scope of the set, indicating 340 cards. Probably because Topps had begun to sign players for its 1951 Red/Blue Back sets, the actual number of '51B cards issued was 324....

The final ad for Bowman cards was late in the season, in the Aug. 22 issue. It promoted the "New Star Series," and now stated "Over 300" cards. Again, the ad showed an action pose of the Yankees pitcher, while the actual card, #25, was a portrait.

Great ads!

I do find it interesting that the promised numbers for the 1951 Bowman set kept shrinking. I believe the Little Red Book was sent to sports writers, team executives and league officials in late February/early March of each year.

You might have noticed in my initial post that the 1951 Bowman ad - released before the start of the season - promised "close to 400 action pictures." So their ads went from "close to 400".....to "340"....to "over 300" in a span of six months (?) and they ultimately finished with 324.

My next task is to look closely at the names in the 1951 ad and see if any of those players were NOT in the actual set. Need to find my magnifying glass....

[FourStrikes]

promo ad sheet for potential vendors...

note early pop-report reference: "another three million"