Gordon B. Taylor's early hobby publication, Card Comments

Click on pages to enlarge

In trying to find information about old-time dealers George Husby and Jack Urban for a future story in this blog, I asked some long-time hobby friends if they had any recent data on the duo from chilly northern Wisconsin.

My Pittsburgh connection, Bill Zimpleman, sent me scans of the November 1960 edition of Card Comments, a very early hobby publication which appears to have first appeared around 1957. A couple of those scans can be seen above, including a biography of Urban.

A Google search let me to "Collecting in the 50's", an informative blog produced by George Vrechek. He wrote this about Card Comments:

"Card Comments was published by Gordon B. Taylor of New York City. The biggest issue I have is 24 pages and dates from 1960. Each issue was filled with information on card issues, scarcities, errors, new findings. It covered all types of cards, not just baseball. The names mentioned included: Dan Even, Jack Smalling, Larry Fritsch, George Husby, Steve Vanco, Jim Zak, Gavin Riley, Barry Newman, Richard West and even George Vrechek."

Now we have the internet to connect us with other collectors, plus we can find some wonderful, informative websites and blogs. I started in the hobby in about 1972, still long before the internet. Most communication was by letter, with collectors exchanging checklists and wantlists.

In 1972, the two major publications were Dan Dischley's The Trader Speaks and the first incarnation of Sports Collectors Digest out of Milan, Mich. The publisher, John Stommen, sold out to Krause publications in the very early 1980s. Originally, Krause had tried to purchase Baseball Hobby News from Vivian and me. That is a story for another day, however.