1949-50 World Wide Gum NHL Ice Stars Wrappers #5, Milton "Milt" Schmidt

My main goal remains to finish a collection of baseball #5s, but Oh Boy, some other sports prove too interesting to ignore!

Many prewar collectors consider Canadian card company World Wide Gum (WWG) a close sibling of Boston-based Goudey Gum, based on their well-known card sets. WWG licensed multiple years of Big League Gum cards from Goudey, as well as popular products like the one-cent standby Oh Boy Gum. That particular penny gum sold well for decades, long enough that WWG innovated in their own way by printing hockey profiles inside wrappers in English and French. Their set of 48 includes many stars from that 1949-50 season (TCDB set gallery).

Bruins center/centre Milton Schmidt, whose #15 they since retired, sandwiched 17 NHL seasons around three years of Canadian military service for WWII. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy as NHL MVP a season after this particular wrapper came out and remained connected to the Boston organization for over 70 years, passing at age 98 in 2017.

While I'm sure many Schmidt autographs exist, signed Ice Stars wrappers must be few and far between.  I spotted this scan on an auction site some years back and PSA's autograph registry shows one certified signed #5, so this appears to be the sole example! It would be amazing indeed to add this type to my collection.

Value: It remains hard to value things seen in such small quantities. As a well-known Hall of Famer, scarce Milt Schmidt cards will command a high price. Lesser-known wrappers from this set could be more reasonable.

Fakes / reprints: I'm not sure if reprinting or faking a set so obscure would be worth the time and effort. Be sure to purchase something this rare from a dealer or collector you trust.

1973 Topps Baseball #273 Chris Speier, Photo Identified from July 15, 1972

Many baseball card blogs from our hobby's history cover the full, eccentric range of 1973 Topps photography. Many card shots originate from spring training, with chain link fences galore. While Topps picked a few bad apples, they also found some great ones. Based on box score research, I think #273 Chris Speier shows baseball's most exciting play, an inside-the-park homer, from July 15, 1972. Catcher #6 John Bateman sprawls in the dust and Phillie relievers look on from their left field bullpen. (Those empty box seats reflect the poor midseason records for both teams.)

I think we can agree Speier's slide is a dozen times better than 1973 cards like "Joe Rudi" showing teammate Gene Tenace.

What's more, Speier faced off against peak Steve Carlton, during the Cy Young winner's mid-season streak of 15 straight wins. The two-run scamper put SF in front 4-0 and would be the most runs Carlton allowed all month. Despite Steve's departure after five innings, Philly found victory by scoring 11 runs in their top of the seventh, creating this 5% to 99% win probability cliff.

11 runs set Philly's high water mark for any 1972 game, let alone for one inning, and Topps benefited from a shot of Speier's standout play. Oh, for another 100 in that set anywhere near as good!