[abctoo]

Originally Posted by Clutch-Hitter

Interesting. What did these sell for in the early &0s? Seems like a lot of trouble to find old paper to reprint these Bond Bread cards. And we find some of the movie star cards suspicious too?

I was first introduced to "these" sets in the early 1990's when a friend bought the 24 cards of the Festberg remainders for a card of a player he was collecting. He sold me the other 23 for $25 including the Jackie Robinson card.

Long term collectors have always been suspicious of the Festberg set and they put no value to it. In 2009, Post #49 above noted that a complete Festberg set of 24 sold at auction for $102. Another responded that he saw the auction but didn't think anything of it, but had he known it was only $102 he would have bid.

Today, Festberg sets are seen offered on eBay as "Bond Bread" sets generally for around $500 to $1,000, though some have sold for as little as $250 while others over $1,000. Again, these are all usually described as "Bond Bread" sets. A Jackie Robinson card from the Festberg remainders, if offered in a slab of a card grading service that identifies it as a "Bond Bread" card, have sold for over $1,000. Generally, though, an ungraded Robinson from the Festberg remainders can be picked up for $50 to $100.

In my Post #203 OF 05-10-2020 above, I pictured four of the Festberg remainder cards I had asked SCG to grade shortly after I have received it. Three cards were slabbed and labeled as "1947 Homogenized Bond Bread" cards. SCG would not grade the fourth card, the Jackie Robinson, saying it had been trimmed.

Unwittingly, SCG may have given us an answer to the cause of the brown toning on those cards. Many are likewise "trimmed." If you look at the edges of some of them, you can see a heavy dark brown mold much deeper in color than the more uniform brown toning on the back. The set was highly promoted in the 1980's and apparently the over 3,000 sets found sold out. It is not unreasonable to assume that the more severely damaged cards of the find had their edges trimmed to remove the more obvious mold when the supply of sets decreased.

The unanswered question not yet addressed in this thread is what effect did that brown mold have on the cardstock of the Festberg cards. People have been just looking at them as a toned something and assumed they were always thinner than Bond Bread and Sport Star Subjects cards.

In May 2016, Kevin O'Gara asked what are real Bond Bread cards worth. Leon replied in June, "Generally speaking it's not an expensive set relative to others." From the information Griffon512 has recently provided, the Jackie Robinson round corner card he was offering at over $3,500 has been sold. The card had been identified by SCG as a "Bond Bread" card and given a high grade.

It will remain difficult to say what are realistic prices for actual 1947 Bond Bread package inserts until clear guidelines distinguishing them from round-corner Sport Star Subject cards are generally acceptable. There is little question today that anyone would damage a high-grade round-corner Sports Star Subject card so that it would appear to have the wear and tear s) would have.

Recently, a dealer on eBay offered 9 separate auction lots of individual Bond Bread cards with a starting bid of 99¢. While only in "average" condition (cards not especially cared for over the years), only one had a crease. I was the only bidder on 8 of the lots. The ninth I won at a one bid raise over $5. So what are Bond Bread inserts worth?

Also on eBay is a dealer offering a complete set of Screen Star Subjects cards at $249.95.

I arrived here at this thread a few months ago looking for information on what I thought were Bond Bread cards. My eyes glossed over trying to understand the so many different sets the thread had virtually passed on by mere reference. I do understand Ted's concerns. The world was trying to tell him that the actual cards of his childhood memories were something they were not.

Looking at the subject with "fresh eyes," I saw that while these many "imposters" (impostors) were a challenge to Ted, they too were also ignored. The bulk of the cards were not widely known in collector circles, and where known, more often than not, little of anything else about was known.

Clutch-Hitter, I'm not sure I'm going in the direction you sought.

Like most of us, you probably have seen your fill of modern cards and their manufacturer created limited print "rarities." Hundreds of millions of Bond Bread cards were inserted into bread packages. Where are they? It is virtually impossible to complete a set in average condition, but you can complete a set of what are called "Bond Bread" cards in near mint or better condition.

I'm sure that Charleybrown has spent many enjoyable years just trying to gather sufficient information to accurately date and describe the 13 cards of the Bond Bread special Jackie Robinson set. And that's what it's all about, learning new things and having fun.

My 1988 1st edition of the Standard Catalog puts the special 13 card Jackie Robinson set at $3,150 NM, with all of the individual cards at $250 NM each, except the Robinson Portrait Card (with facsimile autograph), which it values at $150 NM. Today, you couldn't touch a single NM card of the set for the 1988 price of the complete set (and probably could not find a complete in that condition offered for sale back then).

The 1988 Standard Catalog does not mention Bond Bread package insert cards. What has caused much dispute recently in this thread is a set of cards called Bond Bread cards in high grade that was sold along with a complete set of the four Sport Star Subjects boxes in May 2020 on eBay for over $4,500. Many old-timers believe the cards to be genuine 1947 Bond Bread cards with the Sport Star Subject Boxes an add-on. Others, like myself, believe the cards are from those Sport Star Subject boxes.

It has yet to be explained why so many cards have turned up in recent years in high grade that are called "Bond Bread" cards, when the actual package insert cards old-timers acquired back then are not now in the same high condition? Would the actual population of high grade cards make a true 1947 Bond Bread insert graded 7 more valuable than a Sport Star Subjects card graded 7.5, 8 or 9?

I looked in some old 1990 Sport Collector Digest (SCD) and other 1990 card newspapers I have and could find no ads (not even classified ones) mentioning Bond Bread insert cards. New issues were the big thing.

PSA's website shows they have graded some 52,816 1985 Topps #401 Mark McGwire Olympic "Rookie" cards with 42,426 of them at PSA 8 or better. In 1990, the McGwires in PSA 8 were being sold above $200 and touted as investments. Today, PSA's on-line price guide puts that PSA 8 McGwire at $15. But a lot of people had a lot of fun in the late 1980's just trying to find one.

Sport Star Subjects cards will never see such a dramatic shift in price. But that is the fear many have if their cards are not identified as Bond Bread inserts. Sport Star Subjects cards are highly collectible and in short supply. While most do not believe they were issued before 1948-49, some inconclusive evidence suggests otherwise.

The very nature of card collecting, where more people seek individual cards than try to complete sets, underlies an investment demand that drives a large part of the card business.

This past week, I looked through several cardboard boxes containing some of the sorted plastic card boxes of non-sports cards I've had in storage since 1990. One of them contained 65 different cards from the 50 card Jack Rose Little Cigar back subset of the T59 American Tobacco Company "Flags of All Nations" set (a complete set with all front and back variations totals over 7,500). There are 4 Jack Rose back varieties for each of the 50 front designs or 200 cards in that subset. That's more different cards of any of the T59 subsets I have.

With about a third of the Jack Rose subset, I thought should I complete it and work on the rest of the set? I put the plastic box back in order in the cardboard box and said to myself, "No." Since my interests in the Bond Bread like and related cards went beyond the 1947 Bond Bread inserts, I would have enough to do addressing the more than a couple of dozen of its lookalike and related sets. That was consistent with my efforts to reconstruct the Elgee perforated dual-sided sheets, the cards ow which are routinely mislabeled as "Bond Bread" cards.

Clutch-Hitter, if you are a serious collector looking for something impossible to collect, try starting and putting together the 48 card set of "Page's Pittsburgh Milk Co. cards." These are identical to the Bond Bread package inserts, with “rounded” corners, but are rubberstamped on the back in either purple or black ink: “PAGE'S / PITTSBURGH MILK CO. / The Sweetest Milk Ever Sold”.

Some have discounted the "Page's Milk" set as merely remainders of Bond Bread cards. It's true, Page's Milk did obtain remainders after the Bond Bread promotion was over. Page's Milk believed in extensive promotion of its products and its home-delivery service.

When Page's Milk cards were brought up in this thread years ago, a responder was misunderstood when pointing out the intensity of Page's Milk promotional capabilities and the extent it went to to promote its name. Page's milk had a long run radio show widely broadcast. A singer on that radio show named Patti was always introduced as Patti "Page" (the Page's Milk singer). She adopted that name for use throughout her long and famous career that followed.

But that does not end the story of the Page's Milk cards. In 1949, Page's Milk made an extensive card promotion all their own. Page's Milk especially distinguishing their overprinted cards from the old Bond Bread ones. Like many milk companies across the United States, Page's Milk was regularly home-delivered. It was to that large milk buying market that Page's applied its cards. Below is a scan of a Page's Milk offer that uses its overprinted cards to keep home-delivery customers coming back for more and a scan of the back of a card with Page's overprint.





Or you might try something even more difficult. Work on the London Dry London Dry Beverages (including gin) cards. Those few known have identical pictures to Bond Bread package inserts, except have “square” corners. They are rubberstamped on the back: “Compliments of / LONDON DRY / TRADE MARK REGISTERED / The Topper of all Drinks (with logo in between) / BEVERAGES.”

Very little is known about the London Dry cards except that in the late 1940s, some were released in New York City (the same city where the Festberg remainders were found 20 years later). It will be difficult to find one, but once you find the right track, it will lead you to more. (And keep me in mind if you find any duplicates.)



I may be have been rambling on too long.

So, be well, Mike

Copyright 2020 by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 26521, Oakland, California 94602-0521