I am very interested in any remembrances from collectors who collected the old card sets while they were being issued. As I get these remembrances, I will post them to this section of the Movie Card Website.
05 August 2005
Hi Troy,
Looking back through my mails I noted that you ask about collecting cigarette cards as a boy. There's not a lot I can tell you really. I was born in 1919 so, when I was a schoolboy, practically all the men smoked. When they had taken their last 'fag', as they were known, out of the packet they just threw the packet down. We kids used to go around picking up these packets and hoping that the card was still in it. My father smoked, as did my uncles, and they all kept the cards for me. Also my father would bring cards home from where he worked for me, he would take them from the packets his work mates discarded. Of course, swopping cards at school was also big business, you could get up to ten cards for one that a kid wanted to complete a set !
I stored all mine in a large box and they were still in that same box when I started selling them off. My daughter found them in the loft of my house and said, "Dad, you really ought to sell these". They had been up there so long that a good many of them had stuck together, because of the gummed backs of the cards, so we had to throw away a good few cards. Even so I managed to sell some 6,000 cards !
Quite amazing how that box of cards seemed to stay around. When I went off to war, in 1939, my mother kept the box in her spare room until I claimed it back again and then, later in life, it ended up in the loft here. Now the cards have gone all over the world and do you know what, the ones that fetched the highest prices was 'Poultry', pictures of chickens !! Go figure !
I've now started on my stamp collection !! Great thing, this Ebay, keeps the old brain active.
You take care now,
Alan.
13 December 2005
Hi Troy,
My Uncle is reluctant to write down his reflections - I think he feels he is not talented enough with the pen. So I spoke to him about how he collected the cards. Neither of his parents smoked cigarettes, although his father smoked a pipe and he walked to the tobacconist with him.
Apparently the way that he collected the cards (and according to Uncle Laurie, the way that most of the kids collected the cards), was to "hang around the tobacconist" and ask the fellows as they left the shop if they could have the card. Also he reminded me that, in those days generally people had cigarette cases so they emptied the soft packets into their cases as they left the shop and, most it seems, threw the empty packets on the ground. So he said that he always checked the packets lying around to see if they had cards in them. Isn't it an interesting reflection on those times?
He was able to collect a shoe box full of cards that way over a period of time. When he was 12 his father died and his mother was taken in by a sister who could only give them one room between them. So Laurie, His mother and brother had to "fit" in one room. His mother told him that most of his things would need to be thrown out. Apparently while he was away from home one day she "got rid" of his cards without warning him. He said that he had a few sets in a different spot to the shoe box, so they are what he has now. You would also be interested to know that the cards that he had missing were taken by his mother and stuck on a calendar.
I hope this has given you a small insight into the collecting of cards at the time of their production.
Regards,
Karen
28 December 2006
Collecting chewing gum cards is again quite popular in Finland. About 150 active collectors. Of course collecting gum cards was even more popular in 50’s 60’s and 70’s when almost every boy collected them.
Total amount of different chewing gum cards that were sold in Finland is about 25,000.
Collectors are mostly men age 40-60. It is some kind of nostalgia to try to improve the unfinished collections one has collected as child. I for example “found” my childhood cards a year ago in my parents house. There were about 800 cards, collected in 60’s and 70’s and now, one year later I own over 7000 cards.
I am 49 now. I have found it very satisfying beginning to collect those cards again after 35 years. It is my favourite hobby now and I have got many new friends, pen-pals. We trade cards, send letters, email and phone.
I have found out that gum card collectors are very honest people, mostly middle-aged men who try to complete their childhood dream of getting all cards. Some try to buy all at once in big amounts and some little by little.
10 January 2007
I was born in Southern Sweden in 1964. Durings the late 60s it was still very popular to collect chewing gum cards, even if the interest had decreased since the 50s. I got my first cards when I was about five years old - those cards are still in my collection!
Most popular among boys at this time was to collect cards with western themes. In Sweden western movies and television programs were very popular - High Chaparral and Bonanza were running on the television. (Later at the end of the 70s "the Macahans" was perhaps even more popular). The latest figure about how many cards that were issued/sold in Sweden is about 18,000 (this includes only dutch gum cards).
I collected cards for a few years and then put the collection aside. About two years ago I found that my oldest boy (I have two - Jakob 8 years old and Gabriel 5½ years old) had too many of those Pokemon cards to handle them. I helped him to organize them and then I remembered my own collection and started to collect again. My main interest is with cards with western themes but I also collect cards from a few other sets as well. I now have about 2,500 cards with western themes and perhaps another 1,000 cards with other themes. Both my boys like the old cards and have rather big collections of their own.
I live in the capital of Sweden - Stockholm - and this has made it easier to find new cards. I have met some of the biggest collectors in Sweden and we have traded some cards.
The most valuable card in Sweden is a card of Marilyn Monroe and is from the set FA (number 60). For a fine card you must pay around $250-300. Also some Elvis Presley cards have a high value.
The interest in collecting these cards has become more popular in recent years and I think many of the collectors are about my age.
28 April 2008
I am from Trinidad and Tobago (Caribbean) and have been collecting the cards printed in Holland (Dutch Gum Cards) since I was about seven years old. My four older brothers collected them before. They were sold in stores for 10 cents a pack back then. This was in the mid seventies and everybody was collecting them. Then all of a sudden they were gone. For years I tried to find them and was unable to. As a kid I used to play with them quite often and over the years they have gotten old. I remember when watching the western movies I could actually see the parts these cards were taken from. Seeing them on the internet again brought back some childhood memories. I never had a complete set and always wanted to. I introduced these cards to my ten year old son and he wants to collect them.
My father was a big movie fan and he would go to the movies quite often. Growing up in a small country, well there wasn’t much to do at that time. I was introduced to those classic actors through him telling me about the movies that he saw. Westerns were always my favorite movies to watch. I have a DVD & VHS collection of some of my favorite ones. By watching these westerns, I became familiar with the actors so when I saw these cards that my four older brothers were collecting, well I got hooked on them. As soon as I got my allowance (25 cents) I would run to the store to buy two packs. There was a lot of excitement before opening those packs. I was always hoping to get the ones I didn’t have. I only wished that I had kept some of them sealed.
My four older brothers started collecting these cards in the late fifties or early sixties. We had no name for the cards back then and since they were taken from westerns, we simply called them Texas. They were so popular back then that everybody was collecting these cards. When my friends and cousins got together we would look at each other's collections. We would exchange for the ones we didn’t have. We would talk about these cards for hours. I remember a Marlon Brando card was really hard to find. You could have gotten about twenty cards just for his card alone.
We even would make up games with them. We would shuffle our cards together just like regular cards and while they are turned backwards. We would flip to see which is higher. The person who pulls the higher card would win the game. That game would go on for hours. Another game we use to play was called turned down. We would pick three cards out of our stack but show only one to the person who is playing against you. Without touching the card you could look for as long as you like and when ready, we would put the three cards behind our back and sort of mix them up to confuse the other player. We would then place the three cards in front of the player face down. After making his bet he would point at the card that the player thinks is the right one. My favorite game was face up. Two players would have one card in the palm of their hand. Then they both would slap their hands high up together like a high five and then let go. The person whose card is face up when falls to the ground is the winner. There was a lot of cheating in this game. Some players would stick the same cards back to back so when it falls it would always be face up. That card was called a double Decker. So you had to be careful who you were playing with. Around 1978 these cards completely disappeared from stores.
I am now living in the USA. Here are some of the series that I still have with me in the US.
Series C
Series T
Series W
These are some of my favorites:
1) Audie Murphy – My favorite western actor
2) Glenn Ford – Never had his card
3) James Stewart
4) Gary Cooper
5) John Wayne
6) Doug McClure
7) Clint Eastwood – Never had his card
8) Rory Calhoun
9) Randolph Scott
10) Jeff Chandler
11) Ricky Nelson
12) Tab Hunter
13) Jeffrey Hunter – Never had his card
14) Henry Fonda
15) Dean Martin
16) Kirk Douglas
17) Anthony Quinn – Never had his card
18) Burt Lancaster
19) Rod Taylor – Never had his card
20) Rod Cameron
21) Dan Duryea
16 November 1987
Dear Troy,
Received your letter some time ago and have delayed a response to your interesting letter in hope that I could give you some helpful answers.
Baseball card sets I collected were Goudey, Diamond Stars and Tatoo Orbit. As I had only a small number of the Tatoo Orbit set, I sold these some years ago.
The stores where I purchased my cards for one cent each were mainly small neighborhood grocery stores - one I recall in particular was Armstrong's as Mrs. Armstrong would let me check gum packets for the cards I needed.
I would concur with you that Goudey was the leader in baseball cards in the 1930s. As I can recall these were readily available and completing a set was not too difficult.
I was not aware of the cigarette cards of the 1910s or 1880s, as there was no price guides or check lists of these cards in existence when I was collecting.
The Goudey Premium R-309-1 and Goudey Glossy R-311 were items I had to send gum wrappers for to the best of my knowledge; if possible this should be confirmed by someone else.
You asked if I collected any cards other than baseball and my answer would be very few, as the only set of non baseball cards I have is a small set of 18 cards issued by M. J. Holloway & Co. which covered piracy on the Spanish Main.
29 September 2024
Some collectors remember opening their first pack of baseball cards like it was yesterday. I don't. If I had to take a guess about my first pack of cards, I would say I got a 1 cent pack of 1965 Topps baseball cards as a Halloween gift from my second-grade teacher containing a Ron Santo card. This is a vague memory, so who knows if it is accurate or not, but that 1965 Santo is a great card and it will always occupy a spot in my heart as my first card, whether it was or not. I was born in 1959, so I guess I was 6 years old when I got my first card.
That 1965 Ron Santo card didn't trigger any collecting bug for me. I liked it and put it away with my young boy treasures, but I never got another 1965 baseball card that year. I never got any in 1966 either, though I did collect Batman black bat cards that I probably got that year. I don't remember buying any, so my parents probably gave them to me.
I really started collecting baseball cards in 1967. That year I had a big box of cards. I bought some of them, but I think I traded for more than I bought. One of my fondest memories from 1967 was when my dad and I stopped into a drug store. There was a baseball card machine at the front of the store that mesmerized me. There were four baseball cards showing through the front of the machine, all Tiger players. (Living in Michigan at the time, I was a Detroit Tigers fan.) I remember Denny McLain and Jake Wood, but can't remember the others. Beneath the pictures of the four Tiger cards, there was a coin slot. If you put in a nickel, you could push a handle in and pull it out and five baseball cards would emerge from a slot at the front of the machine. I had never seen a machine like this and just couldn't stop looking at it. I wasn't the type of kid who begged my parents for toys when I went to a store, but I did ask my dad for a nickel that day. I told him I really wanted a Denny McLain card. Before giving me the nickel, he told me that I probably wouldn't get a McLain card - the cards I'd get would probably be different from the ones shown. He didn't want me to be disappointed. I plunked that nickel in the slot and promptly pulled out a Denny McLain card. My dad probably couldn't believe it, but fate has always been kind to me when it comes to baseball cards. Of course, I then wanted the other three Tiger cards shown, and my dad gave me another nickel, but all three of the other slots were out of cards. I put the second nickel back into the Denny McLain slot and pulled out some more cards, but no more Tigers.
In my early card collecting days, I mainly collected baseball cards, but I did also buy non-sports cards on occasion. Some of the ones I collected were 1967 Monkees sepia cards, Philadelphia Gum Tarzan cards, Topps Ugly stickers, Marvel stickers, Wacky Packages, Topps Man on the Moon cards, Odd Rods stickers, Partridge Family cards, 1972 Topps Presidents cards, and Happy Horoscopes cards. The Monkees and Odd Rods were both fads at school, lots of kids collected them at the time and brought them to school.
My dad liked collecting and had a small stamp collection and encouraged my collecting. I had small collections of a lot of things as a kid. In 1972, I remember thinking about all my collections and deciding that if I wanted to have a good collection, I needed to specialize. I decided that I liked card collecting the best, so I stopped collecting everything else and just collected cards from then on.
I’m one of the odd collectors that never really stopped collecting and my mom never threw out my cards. When my family moved to California in 1970, she did say we needed to get rid of a lot of our stuff when we moved and she did say the cards needed to go, but apparently she relented, as my cards made the trip to California with me.
In the 1980s, I started to hear about cards from other countries. From reports I heard, old movie star cards were very popular in England. That fascinated me, as I have always been a movies fan. It sounded pretty cool to be able to add some old movie star cards to my collection. This was before the internet, so getting cards from other countries required a lot of letter writing. I was able to learn about card collecting clubs in some other countries, so I joined clubs in England, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
At the time, I started trading with collecting friends I made in those countries. I’d send them some USA cards and they would send me some cards from their country. I corresponded a lot with the New Zealand card magazine editor and he sent me my first Laurel and Hardy card, a beautiful Carreras Oval card. That card got me started on movie star trading cards.
Right as the internet was starting, I decided to start collecting more Laurel and Hardy cards. At the time, there was no real way to know which movie star card sets had Laurel and Hardy cards in them, so I started buying a lot of sets in hopes of getting Laurel and Hardy cards. More often than not, the sets did not have a card of the boys. Since I mainly wanted the Laurel and Hardy cards and not the others, I started selling off most of the others on the internet. In the early days of the internet, there were some news groups and I sold them to people on the movie groups. I also started selling them on eBay in early 1997. The first card I sold on eBay was a beautiful Greta Garbo card without even having a picture of the card on there. Seeing an interest in these cards, I expanded my efforts and created the Movie Card Website in 1997.
The Movie Card Website was created mainly to provide checklists of movie cards to collectors, since there were no checklists for these cards anywhere at the time. I had to create them all from scratch, with much help from other collectors all around the world. It has been amazing to me to correspond with so many dedicated collectors who have been so generous with sharing their collecting knowledge. As I write this in 2024, I just counted almost 300 different contributors to my site that I have listed on my credits page. Some of them have turned helping me with the checklists into a hobby of their own.
It has also surprised me how many different movie star card sets have been issued around the world. When I started this site, I thought there were probably a couple hundred sets from England and a handful of sets from other parts of the world. Boy, was I wrong! I haven't done a count on the number of sets issued, but it is definitely in the thousands. I have been working on adding sets and checklist information to this site now for 27 years, and there is still no shortage of new information to add. Most of the more common sets are now covered pretty completely, but there are a lot of rare sets that keep popping up, keeping me busier on this project than I ever expected.
Unfortunately, the movie star card set consisting of a large number of current movie stars seems to be a thing of the past. The movie cards of today seem to mainly be showing scenes from a current movie, rather than a comprehensive set showing the stars of the day. I'm sure this is due to so much more attention to image licensing by the movie stars. This has kept the focus of the Movie Card Website on movie star cards from the beginnings of movies in the 1910s to the 1970s for the most part, though there has been a sprinkling of sets put out since then.
Thanks for all your interest in this very interesting collecting niche.
14 October 2024
My first cards were baseball arcade cards purchased at the Asbury Park, N.J. amusement park. Mom and dad would give me $5.00 on my birthday and other occasions. I was thrilled to see the HOFers and present day players. I never placed nickels in any machine other than those that dispensed BB cards. It was the late 1940s.
My first gum cards were 1950 Bowman basecall cards, purchased at a small convenient store in Atlantic Highlands N.J. It was a 5 minute walk from my home. Although I collected 1950 through 1955 BB, my favorite sets were 1950's sets. My cards were housed in shoe boxes. I did save all wrappers but can't recall how they were stored.
We were a group of 3-4 card flipping junkies. There were two games - one was the typical "closest to the wall, winner take all" and the other was a two player game, where you covered one of your oppenents cards to win the whole lot of cards. A player could easily win 20+ cards. I won many Mickey Mantle cards while dumping "no-name" players.
In the 50s I financed my hobby as a caddy and paperboy to buy Hopalong Cassidy, Freedoms War, Antique Autos, Bowman Movie Stars, Wild West and Wild Man. Other favorites were Look n See and Scoop.
Flip-O-Vision was fun, separating sections to create hand movies. I didn't like the Hoppy foil cards as I'd rather have regular Hoppy cards for my set. I do recall being upset having to separate Hoppy and Freedom's War panels.
My high school had a candy concession where I collected the colorful Wings set, but no other.
After graduating high school I enlisted in the U.S. Navy. My mom saved hundreds of cards for me even though she gave cards to her neighbor's young son.
1966-1999 I scoured flea markets, BB Card Shows and Collectible Shows in New England, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. I found a Heinz map at an Antique Co-op for $25.00.
I often told my daughter she was my good luck charm as we often traveled to flea markets together. My fondest memory was the huge Brimfield Flea. She found the Uncle Sam "Dirty Dozen" set minus one card. We made purchases at the Disney/Mickey Mouse Convention held one year in Massachusetts.
Late '60s or early '70s - Chicago partners Bill Mastro and Dick Reuss came to a Boston motel on a buying trip. It was an education watching their obscure hand signals behind collector's backs. I refused their high offer ($200.00 total) for three sets of baseball (Bowman 1950, 1951 and 1952). I have no idea of my card conditions but their offer was laughable.
I was careful with my purchases, concentrating on tobacco banners, Horrors of War Hitler cards, Indian Gum, G-men, Mickey Mouse, Sky Birds, War Gum, Hoppy foils and Freedoms War tanks. I loved purchasing very large lots.
Late 1990s I was upset with non-sports collectors making offers to ebay sellers to pull items and sell off-ebay. My focus turned to Ringside boxing, Leaf boxing and Mars Attacks.
The NonSports Gallery webpages, housed at Troy Kirk's site has been a wonderful place for me to visit. Every card collector I've known has been honest and a true friends. It's been a wonderful hobby.