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

[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.

[abctoo]

Originally Posted by 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.

It's true, I've posted little on the 13 cards of the Bond Bread special Jackie Robinson set. member Charleybrown has been researching that issue far beyond belief for years and has posted extensive, useful information in the thread entitled, " OT: Revisiting the D302 Jackie Robinson Bond Bread Release Date " and elsewhere.

In one of his July 2020 posts, Charleybrown indicated he was going to write a more detailed article fully exploring those cards. You should look forward to reading it as I do once it gets published. He has broken a lot of myths about those cards, even those that have existed for over 60 years. The hardest ones of those myths are the dates that each of the individual cards were issued.

He has conclusively proven, including from the 1946-1949 dates of the original, underlying wire service photos used to create the Robinson pictures on the cards, that not all were issued in 1947. Rather, they were issued from 1947 through 1949. Other than my little reference to those Robinson cards (such as in Post #290 on 07-03-2020), I would be redundant to attempt to add anything to Chareybrown's outstanding efforts. I will say, the grading card companies appear to be ignoring reality and are still dating all of these 13 cards on their labels as 1947. That's very misleading for those seeking only "rookie" cards.

GeoPoto, distinguishing Bond Bread cards from other lookalikes is not an endless process. I've only been at it for a little more than 3 months.

Already, we have found the pictures used in the Bond Bread insert set come from ACME Newspictures Service. That also establishes that the Team Photo Packs sold in ballparks (that contained some of those photos) were made up of pictures from ACME.

We've found that cards generally attributed as "Bond Bread perforated dual sided cards" are actually an Elgee Product, not associated with Bond Bread. We date the release date to 1947-48 because a few of the pictures of action shots of Cowboys in the set come from the movie "Red River," which though filmed in 1946, was released in 1948. ACME distributed movie studio pictures to more than 900 clients including over 700 newspaper groups. Since all of the rest of the Cowboy photos come from Cowboy movies released in 1947 or before, it is possible that "Red River" did release movie shots for advance publicity in 1947. If so, that would put the set as a 1947 set and not a 1947-48 one.

We've found that the 1947 Bond Bread insert cards, and the round and square corner cards of the Sport Star Subject sets and the Screen Star Subject sets were manufactured by the Meyercord Co. of Chicago. You fear the distinction between the Bond Bread inserts and the rounded-corner Sport Star Subject cards may take forever to resolve.

Actually, we're not far off from that. While it is a complex issue, as time permits to do so, an extrapolation of the digital image information in http://poynton.ca/ColorFAQ.html will answer your question. That should satisfy your concerns about the provenance of cards posted.

We tried to make the distinction another way -- by comparing the wear on individual die-cuts used for the photos on Bond Bread cards and Sports Star Subjects cards. That would have been very easy if Ted had provided a uniform scan of each of his proven original Bond Bread card to use for comparison. He refused.

We also established as untrue the opinion that the Festberg remainders were reprints made in the 1980's. Our ultraviolet light test proved they were printed on cardstock made before 1951.

We've also shown the fallacy of attempting to distinguish cards by how close one part of an image is to the edge vs. the closeness of the image to an edge of another card. That issue arose because people forgot to apply their knowledge about cards in general. The uncut cards in the sheets of Bond Bread and Sport Star Subjects had no space between each other and would trim just like any other cards, often with a little shift to the left or right, or up or down. We all see what happens during such shifts, and its called "centering," an issue that still plagues the hobby today.

Don't give up! We're working on it and have gone a long way in less than 3½ months. Post your pictures of the backs of Bond Bread and Sport Star Subjects cards, and please continue making comments. It all helps us focus on the actual issues troubling our readers.

Stay healthy,

Mike

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