The First APBA Journal Classified Ad
And a quick look at the original 1950 season
The First APBA Journal Classified Ad
To my knowledge, this is the first classified ad in the long and storied history of The APBA Journal:
It’s fitting, of course, that the ad was a request for the mythical original 1950 season. This was J. Richard Setiz’ first official APBA release. It was printed in limited quantities, with only something like 140 copies made, many of which were likely destroyed or discarded not long after they were sold.
According to the infamous Zack Handbook, only 8 complete 1950 season sets seem to have survived the years:
The Seitz Collection Set, which was auctioned off in 1996 as part of the Seitz estate sale that was advertised in The APBA Journal;
The so-called AJ Ad Set, which was originally purchased through an APBA Journal advertisement in 1991;
The Frank Grande Set, which remained with its original owner from 1951 until January 1998, when it sold through an APBA Journal ad;
The Elfand Set, which the late Robert Henry purchased in 1971, also through The APBA Journal;
The Dick Miller Set, which appears to have never been resold;
The Bob Frasier Set, which was originally an incomplete set, but was eventually completed when the missing 24 cards were purchased on the secondary market;
The Barbara A. Bierl Set, which sold in The APBA Journal in the mid-1970s; and
The Nyman Set, which appeared on the market in 2006.
It’s interesting to note that 5 of the 8 known fully extant sets were sold through The APBA Journal at some point in time. Bob Frasier’s set allegedly was purchased around 1962, several years before The APBA Journal started — and Bill Blair acquired The Nyman Set in 2006, by which time The APBA Journal was history.
It’s hard to calculate the approximate value of the original 1950 APBA set, as many of you already know. The prices cited in The Zack Handbook are of no help, unfortunately. Robert Henry bought The Elfand Set for $1,500 in 1971; Donald Adams bought The AJ Ad Set for only $800 in 1991; meanwhile, the original Seitz Collection set sold for a measly $2,101 in 1996.
It’s even harder to figure out how much a set would go for these days. One complicating factor is the presence of high quality reprints of the original 1950 season set. Francis Rose reprinted this set through the combined Sports Game Publishing / The APBA Journal brand about 15 years ago. More recently, the APBA Game Company came out with a very high quality and limited version of the 1950 season to commemorate its 70th anniversary.
It’s actually not entirely clear how much money the reprinted sets can command on the secondary market. I’ve got two copies of the 70th anniversary set in mint condition; each cost me around $60. I haven’t seen the Francis Rose reprint on the market for years, and am not sure how much it would command.
As far as Robert Schmierer is concerned — it’s interesting to note that he never was able to purchase the set in the end:
Schmierer, of course, is much better known for his 1972 book Forty Years of APBA:
Though it’s more a hagiography of the game and the company than a work of serious research, Schmierer’s book is still extremely important for those of us who are interested in the history of tabletop baseball. We’ll dig into it in a later post.