Guy's Chips Pinbacks from the 60s

I stumbled across these things one night on eBay and did a little research. Guy's Snacks has been in business for almost 80 years. They were founded in Kansas City are still based in the area.

The pins are from a baseball promotion that lasted through the first half of the 60s. The first pins were distributed in chip bags in 1962 and all MLB teams were included. Over the course of the next five years, four different 'series' of pins were issued. They skipped 1963 (or kept distributing the '62 pins) and had different color combos each year for all big league teams in 64, '65 and '66.

No official logos or colors were used and not all the teams had pins with logos at all. A few simply stated "A (team) Fan". Others use a generic player picture and whatnot.

I was easily able to find three of the four Orioles pins. The different years had different undersides and that makes it easier to differentiate the pins than learning the funky colors for your team. The 1962 pins were blank-backed. That is the year I'm lacking for the Orioles. The one above was the first one I picked up. It's from 1966. Note the year is indicated on the back.

These things are small. Not much bigger than a dime.

Lots of the pins I found are printed with a color 'shifted' as you can see with that '66 pin.

Next, the 1964 (no year on reverse) and '65 pins.

The '64 is my favorite as the colors are (sort of) closer to the actual Orioles colors.

I've yet to see a 1962 Orioles pin. I saw an old listing for a "1962" on an auction house site and I think it was a mislabeled '64 and there was no picture of the back. I'll keep digging.

These are fun. Old, ugly, odd....right up my alley!

Orioles Picture Pack Photos

My ongoing re-organization efforts have led to me coming across stuff that has been 'buried' in boxes and binders. I found a stack of  50 or so of these Orioles 50s/60s Picture Pack photos. KeyMan Collectibles' website has a nice summary of the origins of these. They were sold at ballparks and through the mail in 'packs' of 12 to 25. Most were produced by Jay Publishing. KeyMan notes they originated in the 40s but I see some online that look to be from the 1930s.

I bought sets at Manny's Baseball Land souvenir store across River Avenue from Yankee Stadium. Manny's was the 'walk-up eBay' of the day. They sold everything! Others came from Memorial Stadium concession stands or through the mail from the team. Some of the ones I'm posting originated from my purchases back then. Others I've bought through the years. All mine (and all the others as far as I know) are 5x7 pics on semi-gloss paper. Some of the Orioles shots were taken by the team's 'official' photo guy, Mort Tadder.

I thought I had one of the original team-issued envelopes but that might have fallen victim to earlier 'purges'. I came across a few pictures online of other teams photo packs:

I'll kick off with a nice early 60s Brooks Robinson picture.

I wasn't surprised that I discovered several of Brooks in my stack but I was at having three Jackie Brandt pictures. He had a nice run with the Orioles from 1960 thru 1965. He was indirectly part of the deal that brought Frank Robinson to the O's. He traded to the Phillies for Jack Baldschun who was part of the package the Birds sent to the Reds three days later. These next two photos look to be from 1962 or so.

This third Brant show him in their highly under-appreciated 1963 home uniform. Brandt played third base for the Astros in the first game I watched in the Astrodome in the summer of 1967.

Next is Tall Paul Richards. I've seen this photo a time or two (or 12). For one thing, it was used on his 1960 Topps managers card.

Hoyt Wilhelm threw his knuckleball in Baltimore from '58 thru '61 which helps me date some of these things.

Robin Roberts won 42 games for the Birds in the early 60s and few folks even remember him being there. I saw him beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium but I'm not sure what year it was.

The sets contained many similar photos from one year to the next. Check out these two Chuck Estrada photos. Same Memorial Stadium shot with different cropping. I have multiple examples of this same thing.

Jim Gentile...my uncle loved this guy. Said he was 'a man's man'. Whatever that meant. I guess it meant he could hit the hell out of the ball.

Notice anything odd about this next one of Luis Aparicio?

Yup, pinstripes! Ack! And you can see a part of the interlocking S-O-X logo on his shirt. The photo the only Orioles one I've seen that has been altered to reflect a team change. But Jay Publishing (or whoever was responsible) did a really nice job of changing his cap.

Wes Stock was a pretty handy reliever. He was more or less a set-up guy before they called them that. Back then they went a couple of innings.

Gus Triandos was the big bat in the Orioles lineup during their early years in Baltimore. Like Brandt and Roberts, he ended his career with the Astros. Jim Gentile popped up in Houston, too. That was all Paul Richards doing as he became the team's GM.

Steve Barber had a brief run as the O's ace before Jim Palmer claimed that job.

I have quite a few photos that date from 1956/57 or so. Dick Williams is one. He had several stints in Baltimore as a player but that cap dates the shot from 1956ish.

George Kell finished his Hall of Fame career in Charm City in 56/57.

Back to the early 60s for a Ron Hansen picture. Love that sleeve patch Bird!

And we'll end this bunch with a 1963 shot of Brooks Robinson.

Tucked into the stack was this other Brooks Robinson photo. It was slightly smaller than the Picture Pack photos and on different, thinner matte paper. It's also clearly a Mort Tadder photo. He was the Baltimore area photographer whose work is easy to spot by Orioles fans. The pics he took, including hundreds of team-issued postcards, were everywhere.

I have no idea where it came from but the photo and font used are identical to the glossy Brooks photos the team sold back in the 70s and 80s. I'm guessing someone just copied and reproduced it for whatever reasons.

Hey Joe

Joe Shlabotnik of the ever-entertaining Shlabotnik Report recently packed a manila envelope full of goodies and fired it my way. What he included hit a bunch of my collections so without any much further ado let's take a look. But first a note...I scanned about half of the contents of the envelope. I figured I'd show off a representative sample of the stuff Joe sent.

Joe mentioned that he'd been to a postcard show which stopped me in my tracks. A POSTCARD SHOW?!?! How have I remained unaware of these all this time? A quick search turned up a show calendar and what do you know? There is a Houston show scheduled for March. I'm all in.

I'm holding back one postcard because it ties in very well with a post I have scheduled for tomorrow. The one below is of the remarkable Teddy Roosevelt of course.

It's not from his lifetime but it's old enough that it predates the use of Zip Codes as you may be able to tell from the reverse side.

This next one is of the entire Roosevelt clan.

Check out the back...one cent postage 'Domestic and Canada'. Have you tried to send anything to Canada lately? What did we do to piss them off?  Nevermind, I think I know.

Hey, hey it's LBJ! I'm a member/supporter of the LBJ Museum in Austin. They have been sending me info for years on their terrific events. Every one of them seemed to be held on a weekday. Now I'm retired and work conflicts are no more. I'm gonna make some appearances up there.

Of course Joe shoved a ton of Orioles cards into the envelope. Modern, vintage, foreign, shiny and on and on. The enigmatic Chris Davis kicked off the post with a nice reflective Bowman. The O's are committed to Davis for awhile...for better or worse.

These next cards are from the 90s. I knew that without checking the back even though I was nor real familiar with the sets. Gold foil, big script fonts...yup, the 90s.

This Jimmy Haynes is even a Laser cut thing. I have nothing like this in my collection. I see something this and I wish I had stuff like it when we were flipping cards at lunch time in the St Mary's School playground in Jersey in the 60s. It would have been like hurling ninja stars at a wall.

Here's a Pacific Eddie Murray. Is there anything in the hobby more 90s than Pacific? It's from his chunky period. You can divide his career up kind of like Elvis' into Skinny Eddie and Fat Eddie. Just don't tell him I said that.

More cards with gold embossed lettering. Flairs..with their goofy stylized font adornments.

Leaf Studio cards...if they gave awards for the 'Set That Looks Best In A Binder' Studio makes the nomination list, at least. That sig is in gold despite how my scanner makes it look.

Alan Mills. Baseball needs two rules: 1) no more than two catcher visits to the mound per inning (call it the Brian McCann Rule) and nobody wears a number higher than 66. Just because.

Jimmy Key...big honkin' script font.

Man, I like this Fleer set. Borders, decent team caps, readable names, colorful-ness. Pretty cool.  So sue me.

O-Pee-Chee Orioles! I have scattered examples of OPC Birds in my collection but these were all new to me. I prefer the OPC's that look just like the Topps versions but have the OPC logo/trademark.

Modern Orioles! Dig those stirrups on AJ10. OK, here's a third rule for baseball....no more pajama-style pants.

Modern shiny Orioles!

I always forget that Jones was a Mariner. Nice trade, Baltimore.

There were more Orioles cards from the above sets. And amazingly I think only one was a card I already owned.

Joe also remembered my Manchester United love and hit me with several cards of Red Devils including the great David de Gea. Lord knows where the Reds would be this EPL season without him.

I have been to several Houston Dynamo games in previous seasons but I somehow missed this past year. But I do spend many Saturday morning with the Man U Supporters club watching EPL at a bar across the street from the Dynamo stadium a.k.a. The Orange Oven.

More de Gea. Do you ever wonder if anyone actually plays the games with these cards?

That was a cool shipment of cards, Joe. Many thanks! Oh, and here is the late,great Jimi Hendrix doing his classic 'Hey, Joe'. This one's for you.