1940 Diamond Dust Punchboard Cards - How rare are these?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by 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.

Hi Butch,

Funny you posted on this thread. Talking about the Diamond Dust punchboards on here got me thinking about another, non-Diamond Dust punchboard, that I have. And I just got done posting a question about it over on your Baseballgames site. Talk about coincidences.

Anyway, getting back to these Diamond Dust cards, I hear and understand what you're saying, but find it really hard to believe those paper cards could be folded as you described and then fit into a punch hole. The punch holes on all the cards I've ever seen are really small and extremely narrow. I know the paper is thin, but is also ribbed, which adds to the overall thickness. You'd be initially rolling up the paper card, over its entire 1-3/4" length, in accordian fashion just as you said. So that is already going to be pretty thick and probably close to the diameter of an average punch hole already. So how do you then coil it so the normal 1" card width can end up fitting in a much shorter punch hole that is closer to only being say 1/2" deep? You'd have to really wind that coil awful tight, and with the already fragile nature of the paper and the horizontal folds from the ribbing, I can't see how you could possibly get such a coiled paper to fit into the diameter of one of those punch holes without causing noticeable damage or additional folds/creases to the cards. And yet, of all the cards that are out there you never find even one that shows any damage or creases that could have been caused by someone trying to coil them, and then insert them into a punch hole. And even if there was no damage or creases to the card, after having been coiled up in a punch hole for so long the paper itself would still have a residual coiling effect to it. It wouldn't just lay out perfectly flat, it would still be partially coiled, and the horizontal ribbing from the accordion folds would actually magnify the residual coiling effect.

Also, as soon you took the pressure off a card you had coiled and inserted into a punch hole, it would naturally start to uncoil, which would probably make it no longer fit and it would extend out of the punch hole. And remember, each of these punchboards literally had hundreds of punch holes in them, and the material that was used to then cover the punch holes once the cards had been inserted was added as a single sheet, not hole by hole. That means every punch hole had to have had a card inserted into it before the cover sheet was then put on top of them all at once. So how could you keep enough pressure on these hundreds of coiled cards to keep them from uncoiling and popping out of their punch holes before getting a cover sheet attached?

A single individual wouldn't be folding and then insert these cards by hand into a punchboard, would they? Would take too much time as there were hundreds of punch holes per card. And if automated, i can see the accordion ribbing folds being done mechanically. Most all the ribbing on the cards looks uniform, which indicates it was likely done by machine anyway, and to have a person fold each card by hand would take too long I would think and show more inconsistency in the folds than there are. So if the cards were folded and inserted mechanically, how would you get a machine to also coil the cards after foldinhg them, and then keep them from uncoiling till after they got inserted into the punch holes and covered with a cover sheet sealing the cards in. Can't see that happening. Only way I could possibly see the coiled card theory working was if the the punch holes were much wider, which I don't ever remember seeing. Unless and until I actually saw someone pull one of these cards out of a punchboard that is less than 1" thick, I have to believe these Diamond Dust cards only came in punchboards that were over an inch thick.