1947 BOND BREAD and its "imposters"....show us your cards ?

[Scott Janzen]

I didn't want to misdirect the theme of this thread into another debate ...lol, but as it relates to the Bond Bread issue, I saw an Ebay listing this week that i thought was rather profound. It was for a 1947 Bond Bread Stan Musial (I believe) and the listing called it his "Pre-Rookie" card.

BTW...another "round corner" lot of Bond Bread, with a nice Jackie Robinson, sold for $899 this morning. With the Bond issue I have also seen several card grading companies lately that I have never heard of prior to digging into the sales of this issue.

Since many here seem to have the experience and expertise on the Bond Bread issue, have any of you actually contacted any of the card grading to clarify the issue? Unfortunately there are so many existing graded cards that likely was mis-labeled previously it would likely be a huge embarrassment to them and their so-called expertise. Again historical usage will likely prevail, unlike poor Pluto which was demoted from Planetary status, despite decades of public "knowledge". Sorry for the ramble

[phikappapsi]

to that end; we can all agree that THIS is Robinson's real rookie card, not the yellow background Leaf issue - despite the premium and notoriety of the Leaf card.

[abctoo]

Originally Posted by phikappapsi

to that end; we can all agree that THIS is Robinson's real rookie card, not the yellow background Leaf issue - despite the premium and notoriety of the Leaf card.

Joe, you're beating me to my next post. From the scan, we cannot tell if the card was a Bond Bread package insert card or from the "Sport Star Subjects" set. Some in this thread have said they purchased the "Sport Star Subjects" set in 1947, while others say it was issued in 1949. One thing is certain. The individual cards taken out of Bond Bread packages were handled by more people than cards in the "Sports Star Subjects" set and generally should show more signs of wear. We should not assume that just because a card has a white back and rounded corners that it came from a Bond Bread package.

[griffon512]

To start, if one can't definitively say whether a card is coming from a bread package or a Sports Star Subjects box everything else that follows is irrelevant. So where is this going? Are we going to get a bunch of random pictures of rounded cards and square cards, pretend we know what packaging they originally came from, and then draw likely arbitrary conclusions about what differentiates them when any differentiating factors may be completely random or specific to the impact of the environment on the cards from the decades that followed their manufacturing, and then call this research?

Ted and Shaun have captured a lot of great background info on late 40's bread cards from their own personal experience and verifiable data coming from contemporaneous publications. Ted took the right approach when he dropped out of what is happening now when the process stopped becoming valid and reliable versus anything resembling academic research standards. In all likelihood the vast majority of distinctly rounded corner cards that have specific color/toning/contrast on the front and back are period to the late 40's. Yes, someone can try to imitate at least the front of these cards through cutting a square cornered card in a similar fashion and no third party grading service is going to get it right all of the time. It is what it is.

[abctoo]

Originally Posted by griffon512

To start, if one can't definitively say whether a card is coming from a bread package or a Sports Star Subjects box everything else that follows is irrelevant. So where is this going? Are we going to get a bunch of random pictures of rounded cards and square cards, pretend we know what packaging they originally came from, and then draw likely arbitrary conclusions about what differentiates them when any differentiating factors may be completely random or specific to the impact of the environment on the cards from the decades that followed their manufacturing, and then call this research?

Ted and Shaun have captured a lot of great background info on late 40's bread cards from their own personal experience and verifiable data coming from contemporaneous publications. Ted took the right approach when he dropped out of what is happening now when the process stopped becoming valid and reliable versus anything resembling academic research standards. In all likelihood the vast majority of distinctly rounded corner cards that have specific color/toning/contrast on the front and back are period to the late 40's. Yes, someone can try to imitate at least the front of these cards through cutting a square cornered card in a similar fashion and no third party grading service is going to get it right all of the time. It is what it is.

The primary difference between 1947 Bond Bread package insert cards and cards from the Sport Star Subject set is in the intensity of the brightness of the white cardstock. Both were printed by Meyercord Co. from the same initial half-tone and on the same white card stock used throughout the months of printing.

Cards inserted into the bread packages lost some of that brilliance from being there. Cards in the Sport Star Subjects sets initially retained the cardstock brightness in their boxes, but as removed and handled the brilliance diminished.

In his first post at the beginning of this thread, Ted stated: "A recent find of many of these SQUARE cards (BB and Movie Stars) suggest a 1949 issue date since Walker Cooper is depicted in this collection as a NY Giant (Cooper was traded to Cinci in the Summer of '49)." While he called it an "unknown set," he obviously was referring to the "square" corner cards of that version of the Sport Star Subjects sets not issued with "round" corners. He was mistaken though in assuming Walker Cooper was in the set. Thus from the beginning of this thread, he was unaware of a Sport Star Subjects set with "round" corners.

Ted saved many from mistakes by brilliantly distinguishing 1947 Bond Bread package inserts from Festberg remainders with his white-back, round-corners vs. brown-toned back, square-corners definition. We all got it and we're all past that.

Ted indicated he has withdrawn from participation in this thread. He leaves unanswered the confusion his long used, catch-all phrase created as it unwittingly encompasses the "round" corner Sport Star Subjects cards. They are not Bond Bread package inserts.

68Hawk's 08-20-20 Post #311 above, gave us an opportunity to hear what a grading card company would tell its customer about how it distinguishes Bond Bread cards from Sport Star Subjects cards. That question has been asked several times in this thread. From his pictures, it cannot be said which one of these two sets his card came from. At the present it is true though, that a card a grading company has authenticated as a Bond Bread insert has more value than identified otherwise. But remember, there are a couple of old timers who participated early on in this thread who said they obtained their Sport Star Subjects sets in 1947.

You ask why post all of the pictures. On 04-04-2009 in Post #8 above, Ted posted the backs of a Bond Bread insert and a Festberg remainder side-by-side showing their distinctive "white" or "brown-toned" backs. Ted complained about the recent picture I posted showing the backs of a Bond Bread insert verses a Sport Star Subjects card. He will not post his own picture. The pictures now being posted by others will help fill in the gaps as an alternative resolution. This is not an exercise in futility nor a "take-sides" issue. Rather, we all can learn if we participate. Keep posting your pictures of the backs of Bond Bread inserts and Star Star Subjects cards.

I am seeking a set of Sport Star Subjects cards in their original unopened boxes for two reasons. First, it will help establish the order of arrangement of the cards inside since most boxes were opened, the cards taken out, and often put back inside in a random order, not the original. Second, the full brightness of the white cardstock should be retained.

Copyright 2020, by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521

[griffon512]

"intensity of the brightness of the white card stock." I give up. I'm waving the white flag (a more intense white than typically seen in homogenized bread cards, must be a sports star subject flag from 1947 with rounded corners). I hope others do the same.

[abctoo]

Originally Posted by griffon512

"intensity of the brightness of the white card stock." I give up. I'm waving the white flag (a more intense white than typically seen in homogenized bread cards, must be a sports star subject flag from 1947 with rounded corners). I hope others do the same.

What we see is the perceptional result of light radiating on our eyes from the visible region of the spectrum. In 1931, the Commission Internationale de L’Éclairage (CIE) adopted standard curves for color that specify how the various wavelengths of light coming from an object (its radiance) can be transformed into a set of three numbers that specify a color (its “spectral power distribution” or SPD). The eleven basic color categories are white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray, but each color has tens of thousands or more variations.

The CIE defines “brightness” as “the attribute of a visual sensation according to which an area appears to emit more or less light.” CIE defined a numerically standard curve to measure such luminance. Integrating the set of three numbers that specify a color (the SPD) with the measured “brightness” of an object results in a specific CIE luminance number for the object. For more details, see http://poynton.ca/ColorFAQ.html

In other words, we can measure the differences between the brightness of the Bond Bread cards after they came out of the packages against the brightness of cards fresh from a Sport Star Subjects box. The referenced website article above also provides guidance on how to adjust any scans that get posted here to a uniform standard so that one can be compared against another.

I don't know which “white flag” you are waving. Is it a Bond Bread one or a Sport Star Subjects one? Providing more scans of cards is better than giving up.

I do know that for more than 10 years, many people insisted in this thread the Festberg remainders were nothing more than reprints printed after 1980. My Post #194 above of 05-07-2020 (only a little more than 3 months ago, less time than it took to print the cards) provided scientific evidence to establish otherwise. Below is one of the pictures from that post, a Festberg card on top of a strip of new white paper taken under ultraviolet light.



The card itself does not glow because it does not have the chemical “brighteners” that have been added to paper since 1951, while the white strip underneath glows bright, an indicator of added brighteners.

Perhaps my May 2020 posting was confusing because here and there I used terms like “brighteners” and “brightness.” We will be able to measure the actual difference in luminance between Bond Bread and Sport Star Subject cards using a less rudimentary technology than an ultraviolet light (used here only to determine whether or not chemical brighteners had been added).

Of course, it's easy to give up if you really don't care about the differences between 1947 Bond Bread package insert cards and cards of the Sport Star Subjects set. It may be easier to just spend four or five figures on something called a “rookie” card rather than actually know what it is. It is not reasonable to discourage those who might want to know because you do not care.

Keep on posting the backs of Bond Bread cards and Sport Star subject cards for those of us who care.

Thanks,

Mike

Copyright 2020 by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521

[GeoPoto]

I have tried to follow this thread. (I am not actually interested in either of the two sets discussed. My interest is in the related Jackie Robinson set, which hasn't been addressed.) I have a couple of thoughts.

It is hard not to admire Mike's "camel in search of water" doggedness. But, we have followed this saga through numerous sand dunes and yet the horizon continues to show endless sand in all directions.

I have to agree with Griffon that the quest appears doomed. Not only is the "water" proving hard to find, it seems extremely unlikely that the provenance of any cards that may be posted will be solid enough to justify drawing any useful conclusions.

Like Griffon, I have lost interest. I hate to abandon Mike in the desert, but I really can't see how he is going to achieve any meaningful results. Good luck to Mike in proving me wrong.

[griffon512]

Don't confuse indifference with what is obvious: this has been a bridge to nowhere and will continue to be so because the research process is unreliable, random, and invalid. It would not pass muster to even a hint of academic research scrutiny. As I said before -- though I recognize that any objective points will likely never be digested -- if one can not even verify which cards are coming from Bond Bread packages and Sports Star Subject packages everything else is irrelevant. That should be obvious but apparently it isn't. If one is doing a scientific experiment and they can't even identify who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group any results that follow are irrelevant. Clear enough? Probably not.

In Ted's Post 298 -- comprised mainly of Homogenized Bread cards he got when he was a kid in 1947 with the exception of two cards he identified as in later years -- it is clear that there is no material difference in the "intensity of the whiteness," the key differentiator in your words, between the backs of his cards and the supposed Sports Star Subject back you often use in your post.

If you want to blacklight every card you can gather from the Festberg find and compare them to Homogenized Bread cards, go for it, no one is going to stop you.

If people want to waste their time contributing to this "research" that's their choice. I've wasted enough time reading these posts.

By the way, I'm pretty confident there is nothing legally binding about slapping on a copyright on a Internet forum post. Not that anyone of rational mind would have the slightest interest in reproducing the information in this thread.

Copyright: Me, dumbass who spent too much time on this thread

[abctoo]

Originally Posted by Scott Janzen

I didn't want to misdirect the theme of this thread into another debate ...lol, but as it relates to the Bond Bread issue, I saw an Ebay listing this week that i thought was rather profound. It was for a 1947 Bond Bread Stan Musial (I believe) and the listing called it his "Pre-Rookie" card.

BTW...another "round corner" lot of Bond Bread, with a nice Jackie Robinson, sold for $899 this morning. With the Bond issue I have also seen several card grading companies lately that I have never heard of prior to digging into the sales of this issue.

Since many here seem to have the experience and expertise on the Bond Bread issue, have any of you actually contacted any of the card grading to clarify the issue? Unfortunately there are so many existing graded cards that likely was mis-labeled previously it would likely be a huge embarrassment to them and their so-called expertise. Again historical usage will likely prevail, unlike poor Pluto which was demoted from Planetary status, despite decades of public "knowledge". Sorry for the ramble

These companies make no distinction between Bond Bread issues and the cards in the "Sport Star Subjects" set. What people are buying may not be what they think it is.