Diamond Dust punchboards - to punch or not to punch?

[JoeDfan]

Recently I acquired a Diamond Dust punchboard. In my standard catalog, it lists the year as 1940. However, NONE of the players listed on the punchboard match the list. Mine seems to be much earlier, with players like Babe Ruth, Speaker, Johnson, Alexander, and Hornsby.
It appears completely intact.

So the question is, do I punch them out, or leave it intact?

Other questions are: Does anyone have any experience with these, and if I punch them, how many baseball cards am I likely to find? Are they very rare?

Thanks in advance for your opinion.
Sean

[Exhibitman]

There are many variation of these boards. I have never seen a card from any I've owned. One thing to recall is that the cards are rolled, not folded then rolled, so the board has to be thick enough to accommodate a card rolled the short way. If your board is under an inch thick, don't punch it--there are no cards, just slips of numbered paper.

if anyone has a verified board from which a card has been extracted I'd love to see it and find out its dimensions.

[Butch7999]

Hi Sean, we're not terribly expert on punchboards, and we're not entirely sure how serious all your questions are, but...
There are at least five known varieties of punchboards with the Diamond Dust title, three of those with the "5c a Sale" notation.
As far as we know, the "1940" attribution is just an approximation -- all five versions date from somewhere in the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s.
This particular version is fairly tough, but doesn't seem especially rare.
A pristine, unpunched board always has much better eye appeal in our opinion.
Of course, you won't find any baseball cards in any process of punching out the board, if that was a serious question.
The shopkeeper who had a board like this one on display paid a relative pittance for X number of punchboards,
and stood to make about eight bucks in profit per board after all the winning numbers had been punched and paid out.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Butch7999

Hi Sean, we're not terribly expert on punchboards, and we're not entirely sure how serious all your questions are, but...
There are at least five known varieties of punchboards with the Diamond Dust title, three of those with the "5c a Sale" notation.
As far as we know, the "1940" attribution is just an approximation -- all five versions date from somewhere in the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s.
This particular version is fairly tough, but doesn't seem especially rare.
A pristine, unpunched board always has much better eye appeal in our opinion.
Of course, you won't find any baseball cards in any process of punching out the board, if that was a serious question.
The shopkeeper who had a board like this one on display paid a relative pittance for X number of punchboards,
and stood to make about eight bucks in profit per board after all the winning numbers had been punched and paid out.

What is in the punch out holes?

[JoeDfan]

Originally Posted by Butch7999

Hi Sean, we're not terribly expert on punchboards, and we're not entirely sure how serious all your questions are, but...
There are at least five known varieties of punchboards with the Diamond Dust title, three of those with the "5c a Sale" notation.
As far as we know, the "1940" attribution is just an approximation -- all five versions date from somewhere in the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s.
This particular version is fairly tough, but doesn't seem especially rare.
A pristine, unpunched board always has much better eye appeal in our opinion.
Of course, you won't find any baseball cards in any process of punching out the board, if that was a serious question.
The shopkeeper who had a board like this one on display paid a relative pittance for X number of punchboards,
and stood to make about eight bucks in profit per board after all the winning numbers had been punched and paid out.

So where do the little baseball cards come from, if they are not in the board? I actually have 3 of the Diamond Dust cards in my collection. Did the storekeeper trade them for some winning (or losing) number or something?
Yes, it was a serious question. I think I can open the back paper and extract the card without ruining the front. I am particularly leaning towards opening the back, if there is a significant number of baseball guys inside (like Babe Ruth!), but if there is nothing inside, I will leave it as is.

Thanks for your help!
Sean

[Butch7999]

The punched-out holes should reveal a number, and if the number matches that of one of those shown in the pay-out table,
the player receives that amount of money -- in Sean's punchboard above, for example, 12, 22, 62, 92, &c', each win a dollar
for the person playing, at the cost of a nickel per punch.

Many punchboards worked almost identically to that, while other punchboards cost different amounts to play
(usually a penny or a nickel per punch), paid out in different amounts for revealing a number or symbol, often paying out
not in cash but in candy bars or cigars or what have you.

We're not familiar with Diamond Dust baseball cards, so we can't even guess if they're related to the punchboards
(not saying they're not). But we've never seen a punchboard that either paid out in or contained baseball cards.

Again, this is a little outside of our wheelhouse, but someone on board here who has more hands-on experience
with punchboards should have better information. As always, we stand ready to be corrected.

[1880nonsports]

I'm sure he can speak for himself - but the OP is refering to small thin slips of paper like the ones you are referencing that contained numbers - only they depict a baseball player. They have been marketed to today's collector with the idea that these slips when punched were exchanged for one of the promoted prizes.
I'm not sure if the connection between the two has been confirmed with actual evidence or is just conjecture and caviar dreams. While I struggle with bouts of CRS I believe I've seen one in an sgc or psa holder; for whatever that's worth to one's acceptance or denial of the relationship. Like many ancillary issues - it seems these slips whatever their source acceptably stretch the boundaries of what defines a "card" for today's hobbiest.
Not my area of expertise although I have a few nice examples in my collection. I would never take a punch from a board that was complete - even if from the back. One that's been used is probably ripe for exploration of at least one punch............

no guarantees whether written or implied

[bnorth]

Here is a picture of a Diamond Dust Joe DiMaggio graded by SGC. It is the OP's card. I am sure I have seen others graded by SGC and raw ones on eBay.