Neat, your matchbox cards look to be about the same sizes as mine – which measure approximately 1 1/4” x 2”. I had wondered why this collector made ‘em so small, and now it all makes sense.
The "story" of how I acquired the cards....
I found these cards at a neighbor’s estate sale. Her grandparents lived in the house since it was built, sometime in the late 1930s. Her grandmother passed away last year just weeks after celebrating her 100th birthday. From its lovely, Spanish Revival exterior, you’d never know the house would be filled with thousands of antique dolls. The dolls were stored in every room in giant display cabinets and many were staged throughout the house having mock-team parties, and in other scenes. Our new neighbor felt uncomfortable being in the house with thousands of eyes always upon her, so she held an estate sale to get rid of the dolls, antique furniture, and mismatched china. I happened to spot a dusty old shoebox stacked between dozens of worn out dress shoes, this one caught my attention because the words “Robbins, Giants and Yankees” were scribbled on the side of the box. As I peered into the box, my neighbor explained that her grandfather was born in upper Brooklyn and would tell her stories from his youth, sneaking into Ebbets Field to watch ballgames. He grew up in a large family on a rather modest income, so he and his brothers made their own baseball cards. She figured the handmade cards were worthless, yellowing from the glue used to attach player photos (cut out rather haphazardly from the newspaper) to the scrap cardboard, with player names and notes scribbled in a child’s hand. She gave me the box of cards in exchange for helping her with the estate sale. I WISH it were that interesting, but that’s really not how it came to be. So now, "the rest of the story…."
While the neighbor who inherited her grandmother’s house full of dolls is true, there were no baseball cards to be found at the estate sale. I found the cards listed on
ETSY (listing) of all places, while I was searching for “homemade baseball cards” last year. You see, I’ve always wanted to create my own set of baseball cards and was looking to see if anyone else did this sort of thing. I was intrigued with this set, but the original listing had the collection priced at $999. Months later, I looked at the listing again, the price had been reduced to $450. I contacted the seller in late October to gauge how low she was willing to negotiate for the cards. She was based on the east coast and asked to postpone our negotiations until after Sandy had passed. She was without power, and didn’t get back to me several weeks later. With Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, I didn’t get think about the cards again until a few weeks ago and saw the price had dropped again, this time down to $399. I offered her a much lower-bid , she accepted and voila, I bought the cards which arrived here last week. Not very interesting, but that's how it went down. I expect I"ll be busy playing with this set for some time to come, and won't get to my original project to create my OWN set of cards for a while. But I love the cards, and all the interesting biographical stories I've read in the last week. I am hooked !