The 1952 Tip High Bread labels had been the corporate’s fourth interest launch after utilizing baseball playing cards as a promotional technique as early as 1910. The huge guidelines in Tip High’s remaining situation is made up of 48 unnumbered bread labels, measuring roughly 2-1/2” x 2-3/4”, and consists of two completely different photos of Phil Rizzuto. A big star in the course of the label comprises a participant picture, identify, and group identify. TIP TOP BREAD is written on the high of the label and their slogan on the time, IT’S TIP-TOP WITH ME on the backside, with 4 smaller stars across the border, rounding out the label. An accompanying fold out sheet was additionally obtainable from Tip High with the intention to show your labels. The sheet was die lower so the labels would simply slide in and pre labeled with an area for every participant, which additionally consists of important statistics.
Bread labels that includes baseball gamers wasn’t precisely a novel concept in 1952, Fisher’s having finished so the yr prior. Nonetheless, Tip High’s launch was way more expansive and featured future Corridor of Famers in Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizutto, Robin Roberts, Pink Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Duke Snider, and Warren Spahn. As of this writing, PSA and SGC have solely authenticated a mixed 395 examples of 1952 Tip High labels, 23 of them have been Mantle’s card which is one among his earliest. The best-grade PSA has given out is a 5, or glorious, and SGC a 9, though that’s an anomaly, with the following highest graded a 6. Most of those labels in all probability ended up in a landfill because of the means they had been packaged, requiring customers to place in slightly effort and bodily take away the label from the remainder of the plastic wrapping. Just a few of those playing cards can normally be discovered on eBay for a few hundred {dollars}, however they’re arduous to come back by. Mantle’s card bought for $6,500 in poor situation in 2014 and a close to full set bought by Goldin Auctions went for $32,000 (Mueller).
By 1952, Tip High was properly versed in issuing baseball playing cards. After the Pittsburgh Pirates received the World Sequence in 1909, the model honored the group with a 25-card set in 1910 that even included a card for Forbes Area and the Tip High Boy Mascot. In contrast to tobacco playing cards, which had been frequent for the period, the Tip High set was practically sq., measuring 1-13/16” x 2-3/8”. The playing cards have a pastel portray of the group member on the entrance, and within the white border beneath, their identify and WORLD’S CHAMPIONS written. The backs include a litany of knowledge such because the set guidelines, an advert for the Ward-Mackey Firm, and a mail-in provide of the whole set, in return for 50 bread labels. The Forbes Area and Boy Mascot playing cards are extremely wanted, second solely to corridor of famers Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, Vic Willis, and group President Barney Dreyfuss. An entire set, in close to mint situation has been valued at roughly $120,000.
Till lately, a lot of the card accumulating group wasn’t conscious of the Tip High set together with White’s Bakery and issued in loaves of Tip High bread in 1921 for the minor league Baltimore Orioles. The truth is, new info remains to be coming to mild. As of now, the guidelines stands at 22 playing cards, with Lefty Grove’s card considered probably the most invaluable. Grove went 25-10 for the 1921 Orioles of the Worldwide League, who received seven consecutive pennants from 1919-1925. The three-1/4” x 5-1/2” playing cards have a sepia toned image of the participant on the entrance, with their identify, place, and BALTIMORE ORIOLES 1921, barely contained in the white border. Historians have discovered a newspaper commercial, making the announcement {that a} completely different card was issued on daily basis, however the commercial fails to say how lengthy the promotion lasted and what number of playing cards had been issued. The backs of the playing cards are clean, and with out the newspaper commercial, their affiliation with Tip High bread can be unknown.
Tip High’s subsequent endeavor into utilizing sports activities and baseball particularly was a 1939, 1-1/4” pin with a black-and-white picture of Joe DiMaggio. The highest of the pin says, WINNERS EAT WARD’S and on the backside below the image it reads, JOE DI MAGGIO EATS TIP-TOP BREAD. Boxer Billy Conn and hockey participant Eddie Shore are two different identified athletes to make up a whole set of three pins. Whereas these pins are ridiculously scarce, they don’t essentially maintain numerous worth. The Normal Catalog of Classic Baseball Playing cards has DiMaggio’s pin listed at $500 in close to mint situation, nevertheless, a whole set of all three bought at a 2023 public sale for $260 {dollars} with DiMaggio’s pin in poor situation and the opposite two close to mint.
The most important set of playing cards Tip High and Ward’s ever launched was their 1947, 163-card set, notable because of its issuance throughout WWII. Most of the gamers featured within the set performed within the Main Leagues throughout wartime. That stated, the set carries a price of $20,000 in close to mint situation and has a black-and-white participant picture on the entrance, with a white strip on the backside giving their identify, place, and group. The playing cards measure 2-1/4” x 3” and include a pleasant Tip High commercial on the again, stating on the high, TIP TOP IS A PENNANT WINNER EVERY DAY AT EVERY MEAL (there are a number of variations) and on the backside, ENRICHED TIP TOP IS A BETTER BREAD. The Warren Spahn and Yogi Berra playing cards are seen as their rookie playing cards, whereas Bobby Doerr, Ralph Kiner, Ernie Lombardi, Johnny Mize, Phil Rizzuto, Enos Slaughter, and Pirates coach Honus Wagner spherical out the remainder of the Corridor of Famers pictured.
Robert B. Ward was born in New York Metropolis on November 11th, 1851, and baking was within the household blood. Ward’s father, Hugh had immigrated from Eire the yr earlier and opened a small bakery on Broome Avenue in decrease Manhattan. Concurrently, Hugh’s father and Robert’s grandfather, James, was additionally operating a bakery in Manhattan on Eighth Avenue. When Robert was 8 years previous, he began serving to his father within the bakery, however a couple of years later Hugh moved his household to Pittsburgh and continued his baking prowess there (Robert B. Ward Is Useless at 64 Years).
After finishing enterprise faculty in New York, Robert moved again to Pittsburgh to assist his father. Not lengthy after, Hugh pushed Robert to enter enterprise for himself, and taking the $300 he needed to his identify, Robert purchased right into a small grocery retailer. Realizing that baking was his calling, Robert bought his curiosity within the grocery retailer and borrowed an extra $100 to purchase a small Pittsburgh bakery for $400. With the success of his personal bakery, Robert, alongside together with his youthful brother George, fashioned R.B. Ward & Co., later turning into the Ward-Mackey Firm. To develop the enterprise, Robert and George devised the concept of bread made by equipment that could possibly be delivered clear and fully devoid of the human contact. The concept took off and shortly Tip High Bread was identified all through the nation with the brothers increasing in Cleveland, Windfall, Boston, and Chicago. By 1910, Tip High Bread was additionally being made in New York Metropolis and the corporate was producing roughly 85,000,000 loaves of bread a yr (Robert B. Ward Is Useless at 64 Years).
The Federal League started to take form in 1913, led by James Gilmore, a Chicago producer and in 1914, Ward was launched to Gilmore via a pal of his son’s. Ward preferred Gilmore’s simple enterprise strategy and determined to put money into the brand new skilled league and run the Brooklyn franchise. Ward’s group moved into Washington Park, the onetime house of the Dodgers earlier than they left for Ebbets Area after the 1912 season. Within the course of the group grew to become referred to as the Tip Tops after being known as that by newspaper reporters, and the identify caught. Ward pumped $300,000 into the sector, together with a 13-foot-high cement wall encircling your entire park and lighting for night time video games.[1] Washington Park was demolished in 1926, however a portion of the clubhouse wall nonetheless stands on Third Avenue and is broadly believed to be the oldest standing construction regarding baseball in the USA (Kos and Evanosky). In 1914, the Tip Tops completed in fifth place and 11.5 video games again of the Indianapolis Hoosiers after going 77-77. The group didn’t fare any higher in 1915, ending with a file of 70-82 and in seventh place. Ward and the Tip Tops did make use of future Corridor of Famer, Mordecai Brown in 1914, and he went 2-5 in 9 appearances after he was launched by the St. Louis Terriers.
When Ward handed away on October 18th, 1915, on the age of 63 because of coronary heart failure, following neuritis and rheumatism, he was stated to be value greater than $5,000,000. Ward’s bakeries on the time had expanded to 14, together with two in New York and 4 in Chicago (Robert B. Ward Is Useless at 64 Years). Robert’s grandson, William Ward took over the corporate in 1921, and in 1924, he merged Ward Baking Firm with Continental Bakery, successfully dissolving Ward Baking Co. The newly fashioned company was now working 103 bakeries and had roughly 3,500 supply routes (The Buffalo Information). Via a sequence of acquisitions and mergers, Continental Baking Firm would finally be folded into Hostess Manufacturers in 2009.
This put up is a part of a group from the upcoming e-book, “Tasty Baseball Collectibles: Playing cards, Stamps, Stickers and Extra from Meals and Beverage Corporations, 1950–1999”
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/tasty-baseball-collectibles/
[1] Sadly, the lights had been by no means truly used.
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