POST & JELL-O Open Letter from Dan Mabey

[keepmeposted]

This message may seem strange to my hobby friends, but I am compelled to address some misconceptions about the monographs I've prepared on the Post cereal baseball card sets and promotions. I want to highlight three issues.

First, please remember that the books were simply an outgrowth of the fun, challenge, and mysteries of assembling sets that I began in 1982. To be sure, I was the beneficiary of experiences shared by hobby pioneers as I attended baseball card shows in Buena Park and other Southern California venues. However, the majority of text relating to card scarcity and product distribution were based on my own analysis. While I tried to be honest in differentiating fact from speculation, many of you can attest to the fact that our understanding of baseball cards largely consisted of personal experiences, word-of-mouth and a couple of periodicals (like The Trader Speaks, Baseball Hobby News, and the early Sports Collectors Digest). So, the first take-away is that my and other hobbyist written accounts of the Post and JELL-O baseball card promotions were generated at a specific point in time, and well before the proliferation and maturity of the internet and social media.

This leads to my second point, which pertains to the reliability of the information in my books. The easiest way to address this issue is by asking the question: "Are you more knowledgeable about sports collectibles today than you were 25 years ago?" I suspect your answer is yes, largely based on personal experiences and sharing information with like-minded hobbyists. Extending this to my books, collectors -- especially Post and JELL-O enthusiasts -- have discovered errors, variations, and promotion aberrations that my books did not address. This is a GOOD thing! From my perspective, my books were simply a baseline or departure point. I never asserted or implied my books were inviolate, but a structured investigation of things I would have loved to know when I stumbled upon the rubber-banded stack of blank back wonders at Jim's Baseball Card Shop in Pomona circa 1980. So, don't hesitate to point out errors in the books or worry about hurting my feelings. Heck, I haven't been active in the mainstream hobby for over 15 years. If we haven't learned anything new about the Post and JELL-O sets over the past two decades, we're doing something wrong. This leads to my ("thank goodness!" ) final point, which is ...

Third, I do not provide personal counsel or quote prices to private collectors, dealers, Americana journalists, or sports collectible corporate entities engaged in resale, speculation, exploitation, or arbitrage pursuits. I am NOT an expert on the Post and JELL-O sets -- there is NO SUCH THING! And I certainly do not purport to be an authority on the sets or promotions. I mention this because, much to my chagrin, some collector friends have encountered instances where a dealer or corporate entity (engaged in a Post or JELL-O sale) said they spoke to Dan Mabey and he said "blah, blah, blah!" Stated bluntly, It is a bold-faced lie. It is one thing to reference my books, but it is quite another to state or imply I have provided recent personal counsel. My best advice to those encountering such hucksters is to simply walk away. Peace, and KEEPMEPOSTED! Warm Regards, Dan Mabey.