Stan The Man!!

My oldest and best friend is from St. Louis and is about as hardcore a Cards fan as they come, and that's saying something. As Brooks Robinson is to me so Stan Musial is to him. When we roomed together after college we had a dog that was named 'Stosh' in Musial's honor.And through the years (we've been friends since 1971 or so) I've kind of acquired an admiration for Stan Musial, too.

I have some really sweet Musial cards but I never had an autograph. I'm not a huge autograph collector but I think it's nice to have one in any PC and that's what I shoot for.

Musial signed lots of items in his day and towards the end of his life he signed tons of stuff that was sold through his website. He also signed a bunch of stickers that ended up on Topps and Leaf cards and those sigs look terrible. All that combined to reduce the cost (and value I suppose) of Musial items. But none of that matters to me. In fact it helped me find a nice inexpensive sig on an item I really like, a baseball Exhibit card.

This was my other pick-up with my 'extra' PayPal funds. The next thing to dent my budget will be this Saturday's little hotel meeting-room card show. Hopefully I'll find a few cheap 1960 Topps cards. My needs list is steadily dwindling!

Early 60s Exhibit Orioles

I haven't picked up anything for quite awhile and as my outgoing envelopes dried up so have my incoming ones. So I did some digging into boxes that haven't been opened in awhile and found a few things I had forgotten about.

These are Orioles issued by the Exhibit Supply Company, for the most part in 1962 and 1963. they'd been issuing cards since the 20s and continued into 1980 or so. I remember them from vending machines on the boardwalk at Coney Island when I was young. 

There are pics of the rest of the early 60s Exhibits on this page and links to other versions. The '62 and '63 versions are referred to as 'stat backs' as opposed to the blank backs that were issued for decades prior. But not all the ones in my collection have stats. In fact there are more blank backs among my Orioles than stat backs. Examples of the reverse with stats are below. They are standard postcard size.

Steve Barber. This one is in pretty rough shape.

Jim Gentile. My only horizontal Exhibit.

Milt Pappas

Boog Powell. Big John

Jackie Brandt. He looks like a high schooler.

Gus Triandos

Here are examples of the backs. Both black and red printing is seen and I believe most players can be found with both.

These were in a box with some Oriole player postcards I had been looking for. I'll have those scanned and posted soon.

Odd Things

I just found out on Monday that there is something called the 'Golden Age' Hall of Fame ballot. Ten former players (and an exec I think) are up for election. The names include Dick Allen, Tony Oliva and more. Billy Pierce is also among the nominated players. 

While it would be cool for him to make the Hall I have no expectations of him doing so. To be honest I'm in the 'too many guys get in now' camp. But that's a thought for another day. 

I recently picked up my second 1980 Marchant Exhibit card. These are reprints of the original 'arcade' Exhibits and I discussed them a few weeks ago.

They come in three colors, a 'rainbow' as it were, and I have the red and blue tinted ones now. I need the sepia one. Funny thing is the original Pierce Exhibits are much more plentiful than Marchant's reprints.

I found a listing on eBay for Marchant Exhibit Ernie Banks cards and the photo showed a Banks 'rainbow'. The seller calls them Sepia, blue and brown. That means either the 'brown' is what I've seen called 'red' or there is another color in the 'rainbow'.

The Pierce was part of a two part eBay 'lot' which included this Jimmy Piersall. They cost me $2 total and I was happy to pick up the Piersall. He's quite a story.

Finally here's an oddball Pierce item I found while searching for something else. The stadium cup was listed as a 1996 item. Billy shares the side of the cup with Minnie Minoso and Sherm Lollar. 

Exhibit This

I grew up in New York and New Jersey and spent a lot of time visiting my grandparents in Brooklyn (we lived with them when I was very young). My grandfather used to take me to Coney Island and we'd walk the boardwalk there. I remember a vending machine at one souvenir stand that cranked out 'Exhibit' cards for a nickel. I rarely made a trip to my grandparents without bringing home a couple of 'Exhibits'. I'm pretty sure I had no idea that's what they were called and I'm 100% sure that none of them survived my youth.

The card above is an original Billy Pierce Exhibit postcard (I refer to them as 'postcards' due to the size of them but they really were collectibles, not intended for mailing). I have two examples of these things. They are cropped slightly different and the tint is just a touch different but neither variation makes the other one worth scanning.

Exhibit cards were issued more of less continuously from 1921 through the mid-'60s by the Exhibit Supply Company of Chicago. They are all pretty much the same...postcard sized in black and white or sepia with blank backs. This site has a really good guide to ID'ing the various issues. Some great info and pictures of some of the vending machines are here. The company also produced many other cards besides the baseball ones including football, boxing and movie stars. I doubt anyone has come up with a comprehensive checklist of all the cards that the Exhibit Company produced.

The card below is known (to me at least) as a Marchant Exhibit card. It was produced in 1980 and is a reprint of the original. They were done by hobby dealer Paul Marchant (he's on eBay) and he produced them in various tints. If you dig around enough you'll find these credited to the Exhibit Supply Company. The Key Man Collectible site I linked above just has them as another year's issue. But they are reprints. I picked this one up for a song some time ago.

Just for the sake of completeness here is a look at the backs of the two Pierce 'Exhibits' shown above.

First the 50's/60s original:

And the 1980 reprint: