1940 Diamond Dust Punchboard Cards - How rare are these?

[CobbSpikedMe]

If my memory is correct, there hasn't been an unpunched board found that could've held these cards as the boards are not thick enough to fit them. My memory has been known to be faulty at times though.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by CobbSpikedMe

If my memory is correct, there hasn't been an unpunched board found that could've held these cards as the boards are not thick enough to fit them. My memory has been known to be faulty at times though.

And that's why I brought this all up. Something doesn't make sense when you look at the cards and all the punchboards still out there. So now I wonder what exactly is in all these unpunched punchboards that are still out there. Surely someone has to have one of these that has been partially punched so they could go ahead and punch one more out right now to see exactly what is in them, without having to ruin an unpunched game board.

[Zan]

We had a similar conversation in another thread. Essentially proved that the cards were too wide to fit into most boards. I bought one and opened it and got nothing but numbered pieces of paper.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Zan

We had a similar conversation in another thread. Essentially proved that the cards were too wide to fit into most boards. I bought one and opened it and got nothing but numbered pieces of paper.

Thanks for confirming that. Did you specifically buy a Diamond Dust punchboard though, and if so, did it also have a list of ballplayer's names on it that were shown as $1 winners? Assuming so, I would think that the slips for winning selections would have at least had the ballplayer's names on them, if not images. How else would they have identified the winning selections then?

[Exhibitman]

There are myriad DD boards. Only a specific version has the cards. Beyond that I won't say since I am chasing one perpetually.

Every card that is a prize will be in an intact board because the guaranteed payout is the attraction of the device.

As for value, the ones without the cards are of minimal value. One with the cards, well into four figures if the seller knows it or two bidders figure it out.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

There are myriad DD boards. Only a specific version has the cards. Beyond that I won't say since I am chasing one perpetually.

Every card that is a prize will be in an intact board because the guaranteed payout is the attraction of the device.

As for value, the ones without the cards are of minimal value. One with the cards, well into four figures if the seller knows it or two bidders figure it out.

So is it just the one 1940 punchcard version listed in the SCD catalogs that had the cards, or are there others, but you aren't going to share the info because you are looking for these cards for yourself? If so, no problem, I get it.

Because of the dimensions of these cards and their being printed on ribbed paper, I imagine the giveaway to possibly finding a Diamond Dust punchboard with the actual paper cards still in it is to find one that is at least 1" thick then, if not even really a little thicker than that. Since the cards are about 1" wide and never been seen with a fold mark on them running perpendicular to the horizontal ribs in the paper used to make them, the cards could have only been inserted into a punch hole that was at least 1" deep. Thus the need for the Diamond Dust punchboard to be at least 1" thick then to have any chance of containing the actual cards. I've seen Diamond Dust punchboards over the years, but never one that I remember being quite that thick. Which just supports the fact that these cards and punchboards are very rare.

Thanks Adam and good luck in your collection of these Diamond Dust cards.

[Butch7999]

We've catalogued at least fifty different varieties of baseball-themed punchboards -- including five variations
of those with Diamond Dust titles made by at least two and possibly three-four different manufacturers.
We couldn't guess which ones contain the little paper player-cards, but we did venture a theory in another thread
as to how they could fit in the punchboards' holes/sockets -- fold the paper up accordion fashion, as was obviously
done, then roll the resultant narrow strip into a tightly wound coil and insert that into the hole.
This way the boards themselves need be only as thick as the accordion fold of the cards is wide.