December 1951 Sport Fan (early hobby publication)

[trdcrdkid]

Here is volume 1, no. 7 of Sport Fan, from December 1951. This was a very early hobby publication published by Bob Jaspersen and his wife Helen, and it was one of the longest lasting, being published until September-October 1982, shortly before Jaspersen's death, with a 10-year break from 1960 to 1970 due to Jaspersen's health problems. Not long ago, I posted a series of Sport Fan articles from 1954-56 about Jaspersen's unsuccessful attempt to organize a national sports collectors' convention with the help of Lionel Carter and John Sullivan (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=221393), and earlier I've posted several articles from the 1970s, when coverage of conventions was a big part of Sport Fan's content (e.g. here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218561). Last week I posted the directory part of the 1958 Sport Fan Who's Who, which Jaspersen published from 1955 to 1960 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=222091), and in March I posted Lionel Carter's 1983 obituary of Jaspersen (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219926).

When Jaspersen first started publishing Sport Fan in March 1951, he used a hand printing press and 6" x 9" sheets of paper folded in half, so that each page was only 4.5" x 6", and the whole thing was protected by a cover made of red construction paper. As you can see by the scans below, he didn't always do a perfect job of inking the type or applying pressure evenly, which gives it a charmingly artisanal feel. In the spring of 1952, Jaspersen switched to "a large antiquated commercial power press" (see the link from the 1970s in the previous paragraph) and made each issue a single 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper folded in half, so that each page was 5.5" x 8.5". At the bottom of this post I've posted the front page of the earliest issue I have printed that way, August 1952, which Jaspersen called vol. 2, no. 2, even though the February 1952 issue, printed in the old format on the old hand press, was also labeled vol. 2, no. 2. At this point it was still ostensibly a monthly, even though it had been published erratically from the beginning, but starting with the December-January 1952-53 issue it officially became a bimonthly. As Jaspersen later reported, setting all the type for the big power press was a lot of work, so in 1954 he switched to ditto, as in the 1954-56 articles about the attempted national convention that I posted (see link above). That remained the way Sport Fan was reproduced until Jaspersen suspended publication after the January-February 1960 issue due to health problems. An attempted revival at the beginning of 1961 only lasted one issue, but finally Jaspersen revived Sport Fan for good with the May-June 1970 issue, with a lead article on the March 1970 convention at Mike Aronstein's house (which I posted here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...0&#post1529270). Jaspersen continued to publish it every two months until the last few months of his life in 1982.

[Leon]

Nice read. Jasperson writes about hobby auctions and thinks it is a good way to get rid of duplicates etc... Other collectors had been doing similar things for sometime but this is an early reference. Thanks for posting!! I had never seen that first one.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice read. Jasperson writes about hobby auctions and thinks it is a good way to get rid of duplicates etc... Other collectors had been doing similar things for sometime but this is an early reference. Thanks for posting!! I had never seen that first one.

Yeah, I thought the auction article was interesting too. Card Collectors Bulletin had been doing card auctions since 1943, but it's pretty clear that this kid he's citing came up with the idea independently. Jaspersen's article on establishing value was also interesting -- a perpetual topic of interest in the hobby.

I also have two earlier editions of Sport Fan (vol. 1, nos. 4 and 5, June and July 1951) and the two following ones (January and February 1952), but the content isn't as interesting, to me at least. There's a lot about boxing, and the June and July issues have Tommy Troy's predictions for the baseball games that month.