Wheaties Panels

[Keith H. Thompson]

Count me as one who begged his mother to buy the bright and attractive Wheaties boxes in 1939 and later for the Detroit players (Greenberg, Bridges and particularly Gehringer). Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes were less expensive, and my pleas usually went unheeded. I have had to make up these deficiencies as an adult. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the Detroit Tigers radio home broadcasts were partially sponsored by Wheaties who exhorted their listeners to "go to the kitchen right now and fill your bowl with delicious Wheaties flakes." I was nine years old at the time and did just that. Except I had to do it with Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Keith H Thompson

[Leon]

That is pretty cool you begged your mom to buy you the 1939 Wheaties. That makes you almost as old as Teddy Z. !!

Originally Posted by Keith H. Thompson

Count me as one who begged his mother to buy the bright and attractive Wheaties boxes in 1939 and later for the Detroit players (Greenberg, Bridges and particularly Gehringer). Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes were less expensive, and my pleas usually went unheeded. I have had to make up these deficiencies as an adult. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the Detroit Tigers radio home broadcasts were partially sponsored by Wheaties who exhorted their listeners to "go to the kitchen right now and fill your bowl with delicious Wheaties flakes." I was nine years old at the time and did just that. Except I had to do it with Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Keith H Thompson

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by Keith H. Thompson

Count me as one who begged his mother to buy the bright and attractive Wheaties boxes in 1939 and later for the Detroit players (Greenberg, Bridges and particularly Gehringer). Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes were less expensive, and my pleas usually went unheeded. I have had to make up these deficiencies as an adult. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the Detroit Tigers radio home broadcasts were partially sponsored by Wheaties who exhorted their listeners to "go to the kitchen right now and fill your bowl with delicious Wheaties flakes." I was nine years old at the time and did just that. Except I had to do it with Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Keith H Thompson

I weigh in at 66 years old myself and my eyes have seen a lot of wonderful old-time baseball stuff. But I envy that you got here twenty years sooner and were witness to things I can only imagine vicariously.

I picked up a handful of these Wheaties "proofs" from one of the AH's about a decade ago. (Remember GAI? A tip o' the Kawika hat to the first "open Monday" joker).

[BruceinGa]

Wow, such great stuff! My earliest recollection is the post cereal boxes. Thanks for posting.

[sandmountainslim]

Originally Posted by Keith H. Thompson

Count me as one who begged his mother to buy the bright and attractive Wheaties boxes in 1939 and later for the Detroit players (Greenberg, Bridges and particularly Gehringer). Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes were less expensive, and my pleas usually went unheeded. I have had to make up these deficiencies as an adult. I may be mistaken, but I believe that the Detroit Tigers radio home broadcasts were partially sponsored by Wheaties who exhorted their listeners to "go to the kitchen right now and fill your bowl with delicious Wheaties flakes." I was nine years old at the time and did just that. Except I had to do it with Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Keith H Thompson

That is one of the coolest stories I have heard. I can't imagine those times being born in 1970 but I envision a world like Ralphie lived in in A Christmas Story. I have an uncle who was born in 1931 and when talking BB cards with him his first question was "Do you have a Dizzy Dean?".

[Keith H. Thompson]

I am emboldened by the interest in an old man's memories to add one more remark about Wheaties and their back panels over the late thirties. But first, what man or boy among you, upon seeing this Gehringer panel, could resist them? If they were "aces on Gehringer's plate"," that was good enough for me.

My mother did let me get most if not all of the 1939 Centennial Wheaties panels when they came out. The history of baseball had (and still has) a special fascination for me because from my earliest memories I heard stories from my father about his uncles who played seriously for the Danville, IN Browns in the 1880s. One of whom was Sam Thompson (Detroit 1885-1888, Philadelphia 1889-1898, Detroit 1906, HOF 1974). My mother kept her sewing materials in the gold plated silver cup given to Sam by the Philadelphia fans in 1894 (I believe). Also in the cup was Sam's 1887 boxed Dauvray Cup Medal and a ball, which along with a bat of Sam's, my brother and I would use for play.

It was not my intention to detract this thread from the Wheaties panel discussion, so I will conclude with another story. I was deadly serious about not being allowed to buy Wheaties panels, other than the Centennial issues. I did have a Hank Greenberg and pasted it into a large childhood scrapbook along with newspaper cutouts from the Detroit News and Free Press. About 1954 on my return from Korea I went over some of my childhood "possessions" to decide what to keep and what to throw away. To my dismay I discovered that my younger brother had appropriated all of the sports pictures he coveted for his own scrapbook, and in particular had taken a razor blade and extracted Hank Greenbergs body (outstretched glove and all). The more I think of it today I wonder if Hank ever received a more personal touch of a fan's admiration.

[mechanicalman]

I love these stories, Mr. Thompson. I recently picked this up. I would have loved to have seen those guys play live.

[BruceinGa]

[QUOTE=sandmountainslim;16074n "Do you have a Dizzy Dean?".[/QUOTE]

I Vividly remember dizzy dean and pewee reese calling the game of the week.

[David W]

I have about 5 panels of Cardinals in cheap dollar store frames on my office wall. I put colored paper for the background, trimmed them up nicely, and put tape on the back To hold them to the paper and they look nice displayed that way

[Chris-Counts]

I really like the 1937 series 9 set because of its colorful images. The Dodgers actually wore green that year, and the Mungo is the only card I've seen that shows it.

[bnorth]

These are very cool. After seeing them I wanted to make a few different boxes for my personal collection. Way too poor to buy real ones so I settle for "custom" made pieces. This one is 3 1/8" X 5 3/4". Here is a great site I found that shows a ton of box designs. http://cerealpriceguide.blogspot.com...ice-guide.html

[sandmountainslim]

Originally Posted by bnorth

These are very cool. After seeing them I wanted to make a few different boxes for my personal collection. Way too poor to buy real ones so I settle for "custom" made pieces. This one is 3 1/8" X 5 3/4". Here is a great site I found that shows a ton of box designs. http://cerealpriceguide.blogspot.com...ice-guide.html

That box looks great! Thanks for the link, Very cool site.

[sandmountainslim]

How rare/common are the various Wheaties panels when compared to other releases from the period like Goudey, Play Ball, Exhibits etc?

[Exhibitman]

They're tougher to find but not with great demand owing to the sizes and usually ragged condition. I happen to really like them and have quite a few.

Series 1 I appreciate the clear, clean pop art-style images:



Nice thing is that if the kid messed up the border partially, as he did with the Klein, you can bob it down the next layer of frame and it still looks good:



The instructional ones can be a little more ragged:



One thing that is clear with handling lots of Wheaties boxes is that kids in the 1930s had very poor hand-eye coordination because most of the box cards I see have miserable cuts. As do most strip cards.

[sandmountainslim]

Tip of my hat to Sam Majors for the Mel Ott
Thank you, sir! Very nice card and some of the best packaging I have ever encountered.

[sam majors]

Bill,
Glad the Ott Wheaties got there in good shape. Here is the other Cochrane that's in the series. He is pictured in a white hat instead of blue.

[sandmountainslim]

Why are Series 1 called 1935? Were they not produced both in 1934 and 1935? I was thinking I read the Gehrig came out in summer of 34.

[jefferyepayne]

No one has yet shown a full box back for the Wheaties sets that have frames around the players picture. Full backs include a "tab" at the bottom that says:

Wheaties with plenty of milk or cream and some kind of fruit "Breakfast of Champions"



Collecting all the Wheaties backs with the tabs still on them is a major challenge.

jeff

[triwak]

My jagged Gehrig: