I completed the Exhibit postcard set recently and realized I hadn’t done any type of comparison of the old cards. And this is a set that deserves comparison!
1921-1966 Exhibit Supply Company (postcard size)
Founded in 1901, the Exhibit Supply Company (aka, ESCO) was one of the many arcade machine manufacturers that made Chicago the central hub of all things coin-operated in the 20th century. The firm produced a well-rounded mix of “amusements” well into the 1950s, including candy venders, diggers (aka claw machines), shooters, strength testers, and fortune tellers. What really distinguished the business from some of its rivals, though, was its dual role as a publishing house—millions of novelty picture cards were printed and shipped out of its Chicago plant on a regular schedule, designed exclusively for re-stocking ESCO’s own dispensing machines.
First – a background on the cards this set is paying homage too! The Sell Sheet for 2013 Panini Golden Age notes that these cards were produced from the 1940’s to the mid 1960’s – but they actually existed much earlier. Here’s generally what I could find.
The Exhibit Supply Company was an arcade machine manufacturer founded in Chicago in 1901. It produced vending machines, toy “claw” machines, fortune tellers and the like – things you’d find in an arcade. Exhibit issued postcard-size cards from early in the 1920s until 1966 that were sold (initially for a penny) in their arcade machines. The postcards were generally black/white/grey. The postcards were of various subjects, but naturally baseball players had the most collector interest and notoriety for the time.
These cards/postcards are difficult to checklist because they were so similar and it’s tough to pin down the year of issue. There are minor differences, and this website seems to have done an amazing job cataloging those differences and what years they were made.
2013 Panini Golden Age Exhibit Box Toppers – 40 cards (box topper)
“Exhibit cards from the 1940s through the final years of the mid-60s captured the image of the depicted athlete like few other cards did. A new run of Exhibits will be box toppers, one per box. Forty different subjects!”
As far as I can tell – there are 4 players who have a box topper in Panini’s 2013 Exhibits throwback set who also had a card issued in the original arcade penny version. Since the run was so long – the players do span a bit across the generations!
Tris Speaker is the oldest, a player from the Deadball era who played into the roaring 20’s and the rise of the Bambino. He was near the end of his career when Exhibit started making these gray postcards.
Speaker has 3 or 4 different Exhibit Supply postcards – I found this one which appears to be 1922. I liked it because it’s kind of a similar photo as the Golden Age box topper in that Speaker is following through on his swing.
There was actually one from 1921 I think has a bit better picture – it’s a close-up portrait of Speaker and notes that he’s Cleveland’s manager.
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Next up chronologically is Jim Bottomley, an RBI man for the St. Louis Cardinals of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. He won 2 World Series as a member of the “Gashouse Gang”.
“Sunny Jim” debuted in 1922 and is one of 4 players in the live ball era to lead his league in both triples and homers in the same season. He did so in 1928 when he won the NL MVP award. I remember his name most holding the MLB record with 12 RBI in one game – done in 1924 against Brooklyn. The record was tied by Mark Whiten in 1993 who had 4 homers and 12 RBI. Bottomley did it with a 6-hit effort – 2 homers, a double and 3 singles.
This card was from 1923-24 and again kind of mirrors the Golden Age card. It has a darkend out background though, with white cursive writing. So you can see that these postcards could be quite different.
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From the same generation as Bottomley was Hack Wilson, who made his MLB debut in 1923.
Wilson was another RBI record holder from that era – to this day he has the most RBI in a single season with 191 (or 190 if you go by MLB’s official stats) in 1930. That same season he won the NL MVP and hit 56 home runs, a National League Record until the McGwire/Sosa home run chase of 1998.
This Exhibit card was from 1928. Again – a similar pose. Wilson has a damn cool uniform on in this postcard. Would be a fun one to own. He had one other Exhibit card where he’s fielding (says that one is 1925-31).
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The last player is Bob Feller – his card is my favorite from the Golden Age set. Feller was the best pitcher in baseball at the time of World War II – and probably would have won 350+ games had it not been for the War. He debuted in 1936 and pitched through the mid-50’s.
His first Exhibits card was from a 4-players in one postcard set the company did in the late 1930’s. He had a bunch of more regular single player postcards later – this one is designated 1939-46. They were doing the signature here with “yours truly”!
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This was really fun to do – just like the Ferguson Bakery Pennants from the year before for Golden Age. The cards are pretty nice, all the way around.
Description: “New, hazy and of the single IPA sorts and featuring two of our most exciting hop selections from the latest crop of New Zealand’s best. Get excited, baseball fans.”
Lifetime Topps project 
