1992 Food Lion Richard Petty Appreciation Tour

Richard Petty announced 1992 will be his final season of driving. Grocery store Food Lion decide commemorate Petty's farewell tour with this 116 card set. I believe the packs are sold at the track on the weekend of the race. For example if you were at Bristol for the race the track vendor will sell you the Bristol pack. Each pack have four cards. This is a Talladega pack featuring his highlights from the previous races he drove on the track.

33 - Checklist shows the card set list. I wonder how many discard this card. Checking on Comc.com some are missing the cover/checklist card.

34 - King Richard waiting for his turn

35 - The first ever Talladega race almost never happened. After multiple tire failures during practice the drivers, fearing for their lives and safety, boycotted the race. King Richard is one of them. Bill France Sr. brought in replacements to drive the race.

36 - took victory in the 1983 race.
 
I wonder if you buy a box of this it will be same cards over and over.

1993 Columbia Tristar A League of Their Own

This is a rice paper wrapper for a three-card set promoting the VHS (er, and other formats) release of "A League of Their Own." The wrapper measures 8.5" x 11.5" (roughly). It features the "Columbia Tristar Hone Video" text along the top. On the top left is the combo logo for Columbia-Tristar and in the upper right is the date, 1993. Prominently featured in the center is a full color baseball with a clip art star behind it. The words, "Major hit" appear in a banner at the bottom of the baseball. The lower third of the wrapper features the following text: "Inside: 3 giant baseball cards featuring 3 of Hollywood's Most Valuable Players 1 major league box-office hit!" There is also a logo for the Racine Peaches ballclub. The whole wrapper features a navy blue background with a white border.

Inside, we find 3 over-sized cards. The cards measure roughly 8-5/16" x 11" in size. Each card features one of the "lead" actors from the movie. The star's face is displayed coming through a star border takes up the majority of the card face. The upper left corner features the AAGPBL logo. The actor's name appears below the photo in a banner. The position the player portrayed played in the movie is shown at the bottom of the front of the card.

First up, we have Geena Davis:

The card backs feature career info about the person portrayed along with the character's name. Each card features three still from the movie. There are also quotes about how great the movie is plus a list of formats upon which the movie can be viewed.

Wow. Laserdisc, 8MM, Beta!? Holy smokes.

Next up is Madonna. Each person has a different color background for the face of their card. That's a nice touch.

The card lists a couple movies as her "Career Highlights." I mean, okay, this is a movie promo card, but come on. Madonna's career highlight at the time was being freaking Madonna. I guess that's not something you can put on the back of a card.

The last card features Tom Hanks. His credits do not yet include "Forrest Gump," as that movie was still a year or so away.

The wrapper says to "Be a part of a winning team. Details inside," but I had no details of any such membership.

I paid $15 for the set. I only bring this up because I have seen individual cards listed for twice that each. Man, this hobby is weird.

1995 Skybox Indy 500

The Indy 500 was suppose to run on Sunday but pandemic moved the date to Aug 23. Skybox put out Indy 500 set in 1995. Instead regular card size its printed on "tall boys" size. There are 108 cards in the set as well 15 inserts. It's based on 1994 Indy 500 and the stories on the month of May. All the drivers have two cards. The first card feature where they qualify in the race and the second card is where the driver finish. Careful of pulling the cards apart. It might stick together but not severely.

Skybox welcome us with this folded pamphlet of the set.

Also wants you join Skybox Racing club

Expired exchange coupon to send in for card of 1995 Indy 500 who is Jacques Villeneuve.

45 - Teo Fabi - this is qualifying card showing where the driver qualified in the race as well how total number of practice laps within those two weeks (at the time), practice and qualifying speed and team info. Hey its based out of Midland where I live!

64 - Stan Fox - the late Stan Fox brings out final yellow of the race crashing near the end as the race finish under the yellow. Stan would survive a big wreck the following year ending his career.

16 - Johnny Rutherford Retires - Lonestar JR decide call it a career riding in rival AJ Foyt car despite his last attempt at the race was in 1992.

17 - Rahal/Hogan Switches to Ilmor Power - Rahal/Hogan was running Honda engines and Lola chassis heading to the 500. After realizing the team was off pace and the pressure from their sponsor to qualify in the field after Rahal DNQ the previous year they made a decision to drop Lola/Honda package and bought cars from Roger Penske for Penske/Ilmor package for Indy. That went well in the short team as both Hogan/Rahal cars qualified in the race and Rahal finished 3rd. Rahal would drop Honda for Ilmor who would badge their engines Mercedes after the season. Honda, in the other hand, would start winning later in the years as Mercedes would struggling going into 2000s.

2 - Indianapolis Motor Speedway - aerial shot of IMS. They would build a road course inside the circuit and added SAFER barrier on the walls. After almost 70s year the Hulman-George family sold the track to Roger Penske in November.

1 - Checklist

81 - Bryan Herta - the finisher card. In his first ever race driving for AJ Foyt 1993 Indy Lights champion Bryan Herta drove a clean race to 9th place finish. Now Indycar car owner aligned with Michael Andretti he won two Indy 500 with the late Dan Wheldon (2011) and Alexander Rossi (2016)

31 - Stan Fox - another card of the late Stan Fox.

Good photo selection but on tall boys. Skybox produced another Indy 500 set in 1996 this time on regular card size. Good luck finding a pack or box of 96 Indy 500. It seems to be hard-to-find set unlike 1995 set.

1959 Nu Card Rock and Roll

The 1959 Nu-Card Rock and Roll set comes in packs of three cards in a clear cello wrapper. The buyer can see two of the three cards because one of the cards in flipped inside the package. The set consists of 64 cards which are 3-1/2” by 5-1/2” in size. Each card features a Rock and Roll star or group in black and white. The lower portion of the card lists the card number, featured artist's name and birthday information.

First up in this pack, we have Frankie Avalon:

The card in the middle of the pack, and thus the only one not seen before opening it, is a card of The Fleetwoods:

The third card, which was flipped around so we could see who it was while look at the cello pack, is Johnny Mathis:

These were produced in 1959, making most of the singers in this pack all of 19 years old! Mathis was just 23. That is awesome to see these folks when they were so young and just starting out in their careers.

1974 Fleer NBA Basketball Patches

In this post, we take a look at a pack of 1974 Fleer NBA Basketball Patches. The wrapper is bright 70's blue for sure! It shows the Fleer logo with the words "real cloth" and the NBA logo. The copyright on the pack shows 1969, but we will see in a moment why that is not the actual copyright for the contents. Also on the wrapper, the name of the set along with several NBA logos. It tells us there is a stick of gum in there, too. Great.

The pack contains a stiff card that the patches rest against. This card is called "The Shots: Two-hand jumper." The back describes the shot while the front has a cartoon/line art drawing of the indicated move. This card is labeled as "4 of 21" and carries a copyright of 1974. So, the wrapper may be the same one they used in 1969, but the stuff inside (or the Shots card, anyway) is from 974.

Ah, the gum. Nothing quite like gum from somewhere between 1969 and 1974...

Finally, we get to the patches! In this pack, we have two patches of the Golden State Warriors. Fleer calls these "patches," but really, they are cloth stickers from what I can tell.

Update: Thanks to Billy Kingsley for the following additional info:

The 1969 date is when the players union authorized stuff like this. They are actually from the 74-75 season. Topps had the exclusive license for cards, but Fleer got around that by only using generic images on the cards, and putting the NBA logos on cloth.

Unfortunately the adhesive used has attacked a vast majority of them. not a single one of mine doesn't have glue melt. Each team got two stickers, one of their logo and one of their logo on a basketball.

Packs of these are pretty rare. I've never seen one in person despite being a very active NBA collector since 1996.

1958 Jazzbilder (Dutch/Swedish Jazzstjarnor) (NYFA, 1971?)

This is a pack of 1958 "Jazzbilder" cards from an unknown Dutch company that were produced in Sweden, according to my research. (*See below for additional research re: 1971 nyfa) The pack itself is a thin cardstock (perhaps like a 3x5 notecard) which is folded in such a way that a tab on the back holds it together. No sealed wax on this one. The front features a striking red and black scheme, the colors divided diagonally from upper left to lower right. The front of the pack features a window showing the top card. Written at the top is "10 V'A'RLDSBER'O'MDA" (Loosely "World-Famous" according to Google). The lower portion of the pack features the words: "JAZZSTJ'A'RNOR" and "i glansbilder." (Meaning "Jazz Stars" and "in glossy pictures," respectively). There are 50 cards in the set, though certain cards (like Turk Murphy) don't seem to exist on any checklists. This indicates there could be more than 50 cards in the set.

The cards measure roughly 1-5/8" x 1-3/4" in size. They feature glossy images of various jazz musicians. The "gloss" to me looks as though the images had been printed on the cards and then were laminated as opposed to having been printed on a glassy material, but I could be wrong there. The cards are printed on what seems to be the same stock as the wrapper, but the gloss finish gives them more rigidity.

Here, we have Charlie Parker, Patachou, Billie Holiday, and Turk Murphy:

Each card features the musician in color (though very poorly printed) in a framed image with a solid color background. Below each picture is the person's name (also poorly printed).

Below, we have Ella Fitzgerald, Lily Berglund, Owe Tornqvist & Ullabella, and Sara Waughan:

As you can see, some of the cards also feature record label icons. Not all have this.

Below, we have Lena Horne and Jane Christy:

I actually bought six packs of these bundled together. In one of the packs, we actually a VERY nicely printed specimen of Ernestine Anderson:

According to my research, there were two different print runs. This would explain the difference shown. Apparently, the first run is the clearer version and the second is the murkier one. At some point, the printings were mixed together in order to create packs.

Further Study:
The opened wrapper contains an icon with the letters "NYFA" and the number 20017 imprinted. After some more research, I believe the original cards may have been produced (back in 1958) for the opening of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (then called the Natural Cultural Center). NYFA could stand for "New York Foundation for the Arts." If that is the case, the NYFA was founded in 1971, so these would be reprints. The additional unlisted cards may be ones that were added in for the 1971 NYFA launch (Ex: Pat Boone). That is speculation on my part. I have reached out to the seller for more info/background. I will update this post if/as needed.

Research done for this:
http://www.moviecard.com/valgum/dut-unnum-jazz.html
https://imageevent.com/halpen/1958swedenjazzbilderset
https://www.beckett.com/non-sports/1958/jazzbilder
https://www.nyfa.org/Content/Show/About-NYFA
https://www.kennedy-center.org/our-story/

1971 Fleer Sneekies Plastic Stickers

Featured in this post: a pack of 1971 Fleer Sneekies plastic stickers. Note: some people label these as 1967. I couldn't find a definitive answer, so I picked 1971. The wrapper is bright yellow with bright pink and blue accents/banners. These stickers are supposed to worn on your "sneakers and loafers!" There are 12 different sticker cards in the set. Inside the pack is one set of stickers, an instruction card, and a piece of gum.

Well, the gum is more like "pieces" of gum after all these years. I asked my daughter if she wanted to try some, but I raised her better than that and she smartly refused:

The instruction card explains how to apply the stickers. I know I have said this before in other sticker-related posts, but just how dumb were we back then? We didn't know how STICKERS worked!? Holy smokes, man:

And with that, we come to the reason we're here today! I present the SNEEKIES:

There are a random selection of names, some goofy sayings, and a couple other stickers for good measure. Apparently, we had to be told which foot is which as well as how to apply the things. For the record, they call them "plastic stickers," but we would call them vinyl today. I guess in those days, "vinyl" was reserved for records.

1933 Sun Pictures Photo Kit

Pictured above is the paper envelope/wrapper for a 1933 Sun Pictures Photo Kit. The envelope is pink or orange, perhaps it was even red back in the day. As you see, the text features the words "SUN PICTURES" in all caps followed by the directions. There is a "Made is USA" printed near the bottom as is a note encouraging us to collect all 144 variations.

Now, before I get into the pack, I need to clarify that this version is the smaller 2-5/16" x 3-5/8" envelope. There is another version of these that measures closer to 3" x 4" roughly, based on my research. There is very little information that I could find regarding ANY version, though these appear to be some flavor of the W626 Sun Pictures. Generally, though, references to that set are made in regards to the larger version. The set features sports figures and celebrities of the time. Probably the most famous baseball player is the Babe Ruth.

Inside the envelope, which basically fell apart in my fingers as I gingerly attempted to open it without tearing it, we find a holder, a blank piece of photo paper and a very thin "negative."

Below is what remains of the envelope after I gave up trying to be careful (note the color difference in the sunlight):

Here are the pieces inside (photo paper and negative, left; holder, right):

The photo paper and negative each measure 1-1/2" x 2-1/16". As per the instructions, I placed the negative against the photo paper. Each of these has a glossy side and a dull side. The dull side of the negative goes against the shiny side of the photo paper. The two are then placed into the holder. The holder is roughly a 2-1/8" square:

The holder's little half-moon tabs were not very forthcoming. As you see, I was only able to get the upper right and lower left tabs to pop. But, this was enough to hold things in place as far as I was concerned. I then laid it down in the sun:

I waited for roughly five (5) minutes before picking it back up and separating the negative from the photo paper. What I got was a VERY faint black and white image:

Here is an enhanced/edited version of the photo:

Now that I had the image, I wanted to figure out just who this was. As you can see, the name (located in the block at the bottom left of the developed image) did not come through at all. So, I had to rely on the negative to try and solve this mystery.

I took the negative to a mirror and messed around enough with lighting and moving it around to determine that his first name was William. Honestly, I was never 100% sure until later. Figuring out the last name was a nightmare. The text, being mostly dots, was almost impossible to decipher (remember, these are TINY!).

So, pictured above, I scanned the tiny cards in at 2400 dpi. If you click on the image above, you can see a larger rendition. After extensive research online, trying to find checklists and any other information I could, I decided to take a different approach. I searched for "1930's movie starts William." Several names came up, but one was pretty much a dead ringer for our developed mystery guest:

And, after careful examination of the last name on the negative, I came to the conclusion that the suspect was none other than: WILLIAM POWELL!

Now, once you see the name in the flipped negative, you can't unsee it:

The "POWELL" is pretty hard to make out, but the "POW" stand out as the rest sort of falls into place: