Buck Barker writing on card backs

[barrysloate]

Leon- wouldn't the scans of the backs still be on your website? By the way, love the boxing card you pulled out of the Mecca pack. Looks like a 92!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Leon- wouldn't the scans of the backs still be on your website? By the way, love the boxing card you pulled out of the Mecca pack. Looks like a 92!

Hey Barry
It was actually a bit exciting. I know it's not worth much but to open a pack of 100 yr old cigarettes and find a card in it, in pristine condition...just made my jaw drop for a second. I really couldn't believe it. The tax stamp on it had been broken but you could tell it had been in there forever. And I have no idea how long I have had that pack. I think the centering would hold it to an 8 but it is really that nice, even under magnification. I will see what I can do about other Buck scans from the site....You are correct on that one. Nice scan you posted though. take care

[Jacklitsch]

[oaks1912]

Barry... I purchased Buck's Zeenut collection around '91, which consisted of more than 3000 different cards. While not all of the Zeenuts contained his notes, about half of them did. Steve's card above illustrates the shorthand that Buck used. In addition to identification of the player, many contained the complete list of teams the player was associated with, along with the source of the card, and the year Buck acquired the card. Quite a few customers (at the time) requested to have one of the various pioneering collectors noted on the backs. The collectors included Jeff Burdick, Bill Haber, Jim Horne, Lou Chericoni, Dick Dobbins, Larry Moe, John Spalding, Joe Vanacore and Frank Nagy. Virtually every intermediate to advanced Zeenut collection (more than 3000 different) will proudly contain some of Buck's cards. I occasionally see them recirculate, but they were all on my desk at one point. Since much of Buck's notes were done in pencil, I'm hoping that modern collectors refrain from erasing those notes, as they are a part of the hobby's history. The first names that most people take for granted in the checklists were tediously researched by Buck and a handful of other dedicated collectors. These cards with blank backs were Buck's "notebook"...

[barrysloate]

Mark- it's seems interesting that although a pioneer collector like Buck Barker probably never looked at baseball cards for their value, he would write on the backs of the cards. It would seem sacrosanct to do such a thing. But I guess he saw it differently.

[Steve D]

I no longer own the card, as I sold it in 1991 , but I had an N28 Mike Kelly with Buck Barker's address stamp (the same red one that Leon posted) on the back. I bought it from Lew Lipset back in the early 1980's.


Steve

[tbob]

I used to have many 1911 Obaks (red backs) with Barker's scribbling on the back about teams and positions but in trying to get a higher grade set, sold most of them, keeping only a couple for nostalgia sake. I also have several 1911 and 1912 Zeenuts with Barker's hand-scratchings on the back, showing he had a complex system of keeping track of the cards by numbers.