Friday, February 29, 2008

Card Spotlight: 2-29-08

1933 R308 Tattoo Orbit #167 - Jimmy Dykes

I love old cards. The older, the better. I love oddball cards. The odder, the better. What happens when I see an older oddball card?

I lay the card down by the fire and make sweet love. OK, maybe not, but I get very happy about the find. I haven't run across any of these cards at a bargain. In fact, I don't run across very many.

It may have to do with the unsanitary conditions that most of these cards were exposed to. If I found my information correctly, you were supposed to spit on the wrapper. Then rub the wrapper on the face of the card until it was evenly wet. You would then expose the wet card to the sun and a face would appear.

It sounds disgusting and it seems like a good way to spread tuberculosis in the early thirties. Even though its beginnings are questionable at best, this card still intrigues me. It's amazing to me that some cards still survive today, after the torture these cards were put through.

I wouldn't hesitate to put any of these cards into my collection. Maybe I'd be cautious about handling them, but not about adding them to the collection.

2 comments:

dayf said...

Neat find. Those things are really, really hard to find. I've only seen a handful of pictures of them, let alone real cards. I didn't even know Tatoo Orbit did this set until a couple of years ago, I thought the only ones they did were the bright red and yellow cards you got in the reprint books.

Steve Gierman said...

I'm finding a lot more evidence of the lesser known sets. I had no idea about this set until last year.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...