One card...but it's a beauty

At least I think it's a beauty. Which is why I bought a card of a player I've never heard of from a set I'll never probably buy another card from.

It's a 1911 Obak cigarette T212 card of Los Angeles Angels outfielder Curt Bernard. And I don't know him from Adam. But that fairgrounds background is just fantastic. I chose it from a group of these because that painting is so well done.

This paragraph comes from Wikipedia (links theirs) and if it's correct I may know the park shown in the distance:

From 1903 through 1925, the team played at 15,000-seat Washington Park (also known as Chutes Park), just south of downtown Los Angeles. Both the team and the park were founded by James Furlong "Jim" Morley (1869–1940), an entrepreneur involved in bowling, prize fighting, billiards, and gemstones as well as baseball.

Assuming that is the Angels home stadium it's Chutes Park.The above Wiki passage isn't clear but the link makes it plain the Chutes Park was their home through the 1910 season and Washington Park is a different structure on the same grounds opened in 1911.

Barnard was about a decade removed from his two 20ish game runs with the New York Giants. The first coming in 1900 and he had another shot the following season. But his 15 year pro career was spent primarily in the minors and mostly in the PCL with Los Angeles.


The Cardboard Connection has a nice, concise article on the Obak cards which were issued over three years with each year's set having a distinctive back. This 1911 is part of the last Obak issue. Only PCL players appear on these. Back then the PCL was within spitting distance of being a third 'major' league. That CC article link above discusses that.

The red-backed 1911 group is the only one of the three to feature stats and a small write-up of the player on the front.

I wish I had the resources to go after more cigarette cards from this era. They are just wonderful pieces of history. I know not everyone is enthralled by them but I certainly am. My collection isn't very big. I have a couple dozen T206s, half that many T205s and a scattering of others. This is my first, and likely only, T212.

World Cup? I'm all in...still

Being retired has a few perks, one being I can pretty much do what I want most days. Lately, that's meant a lot of World Cup soccer. I know, I know...you hate soccer.  Well, you're missing out on a great deal of fun if you're ignoring the WC. This one has been the best I can remember...amazing goals, late match drama, retired Argentine legend Maradona acting like a complete tool. This WC has had it all.

Having said that yesterday was a real drag. My favorite international player (Lionel Messi) got the boot by France and my beloved Portugal squad was smothered by Uraguay. But even on a day that I was disappointed by the results, I saw wonderful performances by France's 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé and Uraguay's Edinson Cavani who both scored twice.

To bring this around to hobby talk the card above is my only Messi and it shows him in his FC Barcelona kit.  

And below is a recent acquisition.....the 1928 John Player & Sons Tobacco set of 50 Footballers.  It has British and Irish soccer and rugby players. The only card representing Manchester United is of the rather obscure Frank Mann. His Wikipedia entry:

Frank Mann, (born on 17 March 1891 in Nottingham - July, 1966), was an English football half back. In his early days, he played for Aston Villa F.C., Huddersfield Town A.F.C. and Manchester City F.C.. In March 1923, he was sold to Manchester United F.C.. He would stay with United until 1930 when he retired from playing professionally at the age of 39, and carried on playing non-league football for a while with Mossley.

During his United career, he made 197 appearances and scored five goals. He helped them win promotion to the First Division in 1926. He played for them until the age of 39, making him one of the oldest players ever to play for the club.

Here's a blown up view of the back.

My scanner balked at these so I scanned one of the binder pages.

British cigarette companies, particularly Player offered some wonderful cards. I've got a couple of sets including military uniform and nature-based cards. Fascinating stuff to me. 

More Ann Dvorak Cigarette cards

I seems I had found the only Ann Dvorak cards available on eBay so I went searching in other places and found a guy with his own web store who specializes in all things vintage Hollywood. He had some issues with his checkout process but we worked through that and I picked up three cards and what turned out to be an 8x10 which I had though was a card when I bought it.

At the top is a 1934 Players Cigarette card from England. My scan just doesn't do this card justice. It's pretty much perfect and my favorite item in my little group of Ann Dvorak cards. It really shows those expressive eyes of hers.

Seems like a good point to throw in a bit of background on Ms. Dvorak. The paragraph below comes from her biography which is published by one of those university press companies and costs more than I will pay for a book:

Possessing a unique beauty and refined acting skills, Ann Dvorak (1911–1979) found success in Hollywood at a time when many actors were still struggling to adapt to the era of talkies. Seemingly destined for A-list fame, critics touted her as “Hollywood’s New Cinderella” after film mogul Howard Hughes cast her as Cesca in the gangster film Scarface (1932). Dvorak’s journey to superstardom was derailed when she walked out on her contractual obligations to Warner Bros. for an extended honeymoon. Later, she initiated a legal dispute over her contract, an action that was unprecedented at a time when studios exercised complete control over actors’ careers.

This is a 1938 issue from BAT (British American Tobacco). There is also a version in a more traditional 'cigarette card' size that has the same pick in a vertical format with the name at the bottom below her foot. This one is much nicer. You can tell she was a dancer before becoming a full time actress.

This one is also a bit different in that it shows her poolside(?). It was sponsored by the Carreras Tobacco Company of London and issued in 1936. I poked around on sites that sell or list British cards of that era and this set is on the expensive side compared to most others. 

Because it was so reasonable I picked up a dupe of the Godfrey Phillips card that I posted previously. This one has an intact reverse so it's an upgrade. 

Finally, what I thought was another more standard size card that turned out to be an 8x10 (reading is fundamental). But since it was priced like an inexpensive card I'm OK with having bought it. 

Those Wacky Brits!

Ok, so I don't 'get' British humor. My sons laughed hysterically at Monty Python. I had a roommate that thought Benny Hill was the funniest man alive. Me? That all leaves me scratching my head. OTOH I enjoy British dramatic series like my wife's fave, Downton Abbey. And The Avengers is among my favorite TV series ever. All of which leads me to these neat little cards I picked up recently on a whim last year.

These are the Players' Cigarettes cards from 1938. The set is Military Uniforms of the British Empire Overseas. It's made up of fifty cards, each depicting the uniform of one branch of the British military seen around the world. The British Empire was far-reaching and it's influence immense. Looking through these cards and seeing the variety and scope of the uniforms gives you a sense of just how global it was.

I think I paid $18 shipped for the set which is nearly pristine. At that price the cards work of to less than 50 cents apiece. For me that was hard to pass up. They are not anything rare or highly sought but the set was definitely in my wheelhouse when it comes to collecting off-the-wall stuff.

This is my favorite. The Mounties have a knockout uniform and it looks sharp on this card. 

The backs of the cards have a description and brief history of the military unit that wears the uniform. As noted at the top of the back the cards have an adhesive surface. It resembles an 'unlicked stamp' and was intended to be mounted in an album.

Here is one of the cards with a standard card for size comparison.

Sorry for that Sosa thing

In order to make up for the disturbing Sammy Sosa pic posted Sunday here are some more of the lovely ladies of the Garbaty Cigarette Moderne Schönheitsgalerie card set.

I wasn't planning to post these

But after reading Night Owl's latest entry I feel empowered. It IS my collection and if I want to show off some off-the-beaten-path cards then dammit that's just what I'll do. Normally I'd keep these mid-30s era German issued cards under wraps. They show European and American actresses and singers.

But here they are. I found them at an antiques mall while my wife was looking for a headboard. I bought a bundled lot from a guy for about $10. There were 35 of them and I've seen them go for a couple of bucks apiece on eBay.

We enjoy old movies and recognized about half of the subjects shown on these cards. Frankly, the cards themselves are pretty darn attractive. Colorful, embossed, and they contain really nice artwork. Whoever did the colorizing of the original pictures has a nice eye.

A little research turned up some amazing background on these cards and the issuing company, the Garbaty Cigarette Company. This vintage card website tells an interesting tale of the company's founder and his family being forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938, a few short years after these were published.

From that page:

In the center of Nazi Germany's pre-war years, the Garbaty Cigarette  Company released three sets of incredibly striking cigarette cards: Moderne Schönheitsgalerie (Gallery of Modern Beauty) in 1934; Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films (Gallery of Beautiful Women in Film) in 1936; and Film-Lieblinge (Film Favorites) in 1937. Each card has a full color, embossed surface, while the back of each card informs the collector of how to purchase an album (cost: one Reichmark) to house the cards. A cigarette brand logo and other information about the cost of the cigarette boxes in which the cards were inserted also appear on the backs. Interestingly, the word “Garbaty” is nowhere to be seen. While most cards measure 2 1/16 X 2 7/16, a select forty in the 200-card Film-Lieblinge set are much larger, measuring 2 7/16 X 3 1/4.

A few of the nicer cards and an assortment of card-backs:

OK, if you're still reading I can give you a sports tie-in with these. See the top card, the beautiful Leah Ray? She was married for more than 50 years to Sonny Werblin, owner of the New York Jets.

Now you can make fun of me for having these in my collection. But I have to tell you that I'm very secure in my manhood. I've been known to wear a pink golf polo without shame.