For those of you who share my nostalgic yearning for the old and timeless, a word or two on Helmar Brewing Company?s collectible cards?
?Beware the hobby that eats.??Benjamin Franklin
It?s been almost a quarter of a century since I picked up Victoria Gallery?s set of 20 boxing cards, featuring heavyweight champs from Jack Johnson to Mike Tyson. Printed in England in 1991, with handsome artwork by Rob Larson and an appealing sky-blue border, I?m happy to have added this nifty set to my collection. And yet?it doesn?t evoke sarsaparilla. For those of you who share my nostalgic yearning for the old and timeless, a word or two on Helmar Brewing Company?s collectible cards.
Helmar?s cards bring to mind the majesty of the American Tobacco Company?s renowned T206, a series of baseball cards issued between 1909 and 1911, and most famous for its Honus Wagner, one of which sold for $2.8 million in 2007.
Writes Mike Shannon in Sports Collectors Digest, the Helmar cards ?are based on beautiful original artwork done by highly talented contemporary artists. They are handmade from top quality card stock and other intriguing materials and intentionally distressed so that they appeal to true collectors and not to wheeler-dealers interested only in their money-making potential. They are produced in extremely low quantities and not released in sets so that collecting them is a worthy challenge.?
Charles Mandel?s Helmar Brewing Company, based in Michigan, produced an award-winning beer, promoted by ?snazzy player-portrait labels and caps for the bottles and artistic advertising materials.? But, said retailers, ?Look, we just don?t have any room for another beer. There?s just too much competition already. But we love your posters! Can we keep some of them??
Knowing how to turn suds into lemonade, Mandel suspended beer production in favor of ?Famous Athletes,? his first set of collectible cards, featuring players from the Golden Age of baseball. In addition, says Mandel (a man after my own heart), ?I make cards of guys most collectors have not even heard of. And we don?t skimp on the art used for those players either. When we make a card of Art Nehf, for example, we put just as much time and effort into that card as we would a card of Ty Cobb.?
?The painstaking care used to make Helmar cards is almost inconceivable,? writes Shannon. ?Anyone who has ever held a few Helmar cards in his hands will understand what I mean. After all, is Topps (or any other current manufacturer) making any baseball cards that combine as many as eight layers of card stock, utilize die-cut techniques or have leather or multi-faceted crystals embedded in them?? Says collector Skip Morgan, ?I look at my Helmar cards every night, and I always get the feeling that I?m back in 1905.?
In addition to baseball?s Major, Minor, and Negro Leaguers, Japanese players, and House of David boyos, there also boxers. I?ve seen Abe Attell, Jack Johnson, Primo Carnera, and Max Schmeling. Indeed, I?m the proud owner of a Helmar Tony Galento card. Based on Sam Andre?s famous studio portrait of ?Two Ton,? Tony is shown against a wine-red background. He?s also shirtless, apparently to make him look less like a poolroom bouncer and more like the formidable heavyweight contender he was. But if the soiled shirt is gone, the cigar remains, firmly planted in the center of our bruiser?s mouth. Also remaining are the tendrils of smoke, and the game of tag between light and shadow. Across the top of the border of golden brown is written Tony?s famous, ?I?ll moider da bum,? while on the bottom is written, ?Tony ?Two-Ton? Galento,? accompanied by his stats. All right, there some mistakes. It?s ?Two Ton? Tony Galento, for one thing. For another, he had 80 wins, not 86, as the card incorrectly states.
But remember the Inverted Jenny? It was a stamp issued on May 10, 1918, on which the image of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane (the Jenny) appears upside down. A costly error. Or, rather, a pricey one. A single such stamp sold at auction some eight years ago for almost a cool million.
My Helmar Galento card says 86 instead of 80? All the reason in the world not to 86 it.
