1957 Swift Meats Billy Pierce

I didn't think I'd ever have a Swifts Meats Billy Pierce in my collection. They are pretty difficult to find and can get pricey. I lucked into this one recently. I wouldn't ever buy one of these other than to fill a PC. They are pretty odd and not very attractive. The pieces are meant to be punched out and assembled. With 18 different players they form a 9 man team for each league and were intended to be used with a baseball board game.

This didn't scan very well in it's case and I'm undecided as to whether or not I'm going to open it up so the lousy scans and photos I took (below) will have to do.

Interestingly I had read conflicting reports of how these were distributed. First I understood that the came as a mail-in premium from the company complete with the game board. But last night I did some checking around on the net and found an advertising piece showing that one of the players came in each pack of Swift's Franks.

There is evidence of each form of distribution right here:

Here is a look at a sheet of six players that came with the mail-in redemption:

This is an assembled Jackie Jensen player piece for use in the game:

I took these with my phone and they are marginally better than the scans. If you are curious this page has the checklist and a look at each individual card.