Hobby Quick Hits Ep.162 LOTH: Jefferson Burdick

SPEAKER 1: Hobby quick hit delivering their breaking hobby news directly to your in laws.

SPEAKER 1: I know those hot drops from the car shops.

SPEAKER 1: We've got you covered your Hope John.

SPEAKER 2: A new name.

SPEAKER 2: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Hobby Quick Hits. If you're an avid listener of this show or familiar with my content, you know, that hobby history is very important to me. People that came before us that did, made many contributions to the hobby and where we are now, I try to give them they're just due proper credit.

SPEAKER 2: And so we do a show periodically on this show. Maybe once every three months we call it Legends Of The Hobby. Thank you to Mike Lock for the recommended name change and we've done them on so far, Warren Bowman, Mr Mint, Alan Rosen and Luden Junior.

SPEAKER 2: And today we're gonna do our fourth subject and if we were ranking the four probably wouldn't be the fourth ranked person, you know, be higher up most likely. And, little local connection, with this gentleman, who by the way is Mr Jefferson Burdi, born in Central Square, New York about 14 miles from me and there's some other connections as well that you'll hear.

SPEAKER 2: As I go through his kind of biography during the main crux of the episode, recently, I went to his grave which is also in Central Square, New York. And I recently found out he was there, I kind of assumed he was buried somewhere else.

SPEAKER 2: I mean, went to New York with his collection being at the Met thought maybe he was there. But when I found out that, he was buried locally, I wanted to go to, you know, the grave site and sort of pay my respect.

SPEAKER 2: And, I did on a Saturday and was shocked, well, not shocked but kind of surprised at the condition of his gravestone. And his gravestone is really only 30 years old but had some lichen and moss growing on it very hard to even see what was, written on it.

SPEAKER 2: I found it because I used find a grave online to find out exactly where it was. And I came home that Saturday and it was really weighing on my mind about what shape it was in. And so I made a decision to go back Sunday with some tools and cleaning agents and clean it up, you know, put proper respect on his final resting place.

SPEAKER 2: And so Sunday, I did that, I had posted a post Saturday that I paid my respects and took a picture And then Sunday, I posted another picture that I, I cleaned this headstone up. I also cleaned his parents headstones that were to the left and right of them, his dad's to the left, his mom's to the right.

SPEAKER 2: So their dad posted it, sports Collectors Daily, saw the post, they asked if they could run an article and cover it, which I gave them the thumbs up. So it made the, the rounds there and kind of went viral. Got a lot of likes and, and, and not really necessarily my goal.

SPEAKER 2: I'm, I'm, you know, but I, I think my goal with that of posting it is to just bring awareness to Jefferson be, I think there's a lot of people in the hobby who don't know who he is and should, and, you know, believe it, it, you know, be a good steward and, and, and kind of lead by example, like, you know, do things and not just hobby wise, but even in life in general to, to do good things when, when you have an opportunity.

SPEAKER 2: And so that's where that, that really came from, for me and if it inspires someone else, to do something nice then, you know, that's, that's great.

SPEAKER 2: And, you know, I've kind of took it upon myself. I'm, I'm gonna try to get up there. It's, it's only 14 miles away. I'm gonna try to get up there, on average maybe once a month, pay my respects and kind of just oversee the kind of maintenance on the stone itself. So there's a little bit of a connection there.

SPEAKER 2: You know, we're gonna do these, I don't want to overdo them, but we're gonna do these probably, you know, 44 times a year.

SPEAKER 2: I mentioned who we, we've done already. Let me tell you something that you can look forward to probably one more in, in 2023. And the rest of these potentially in 2024 Barry Harper, Arthur Sharon, Cyber, Frank Fleer Burke and Ennis Gordon Gowdy.

SPEAKER 2: And then we'll go past that point when, when we get to it. But those are some of the next hobby icons and individuals you will hear sort of honored with these Legends Of The Hobby series.

SPEAKER 3: Mojo bricks shop dot com is the best place to get your sealed wax products and brakes. They not only have the best selection but the best prices, whether it's a box or a whole case, they are your guys. They ship worldwide to your doorstep their reputation as one of the most trusted in. The hobby goes unmatched. They are the 2021 tops rip party champion breakers from Sports Card to Pokemon cards. Their selection can't be beat.

SPEAKER 3: They offer daily deals and preorders.

SPEAKER 2: Hey guys, John Newman here moo's prices are already great, but to save an additional 10% off anything in their store. Use the code quick hits. That's Qu IC Khits. Check out the full service store that's open seven days a week in Santa Clara, California or the website at mojo break dot com.

SPEAKER 4: Let's check out this week's hobby wax releases. Take it away. Owen.

SPEAKER 5: Hey, guys, welcome to the first shop. Let's go over the week leases on the 27th. We have 2023 Super Break supercharge edition series 3, 2023 tops mcdonald's all American basketball. 2023 to star hidden treasures, football, autograph, full size helmet series 2, 2023 wild card five card draw. Football.

SPEAKER 5: And on the 29th we have 2023 leaf exact baseball, 2022 23 contenders optic base basketball.

SPEAKER 5: 2023 mosaic football choice. 2023 pieces of the past seven year collection. Series two.

SPEAKER 5: On the fourth, we have 2023 Bowman University football, 2023. Pe black football, 2023 pne person W NBA basketball.

SPEAKER 5: 2023 like baseball. 2023 top Gilded collection. Baseball. And then on the sixth we have 2023.

SPEAKER 5: No football, no huddle.

SPEAKER 5: And that's it for you guys. Have a good day.

SPEAKER 6: Let's go round the hobby verse and catch up on this week's hobby news.

SPEAKER 2: I not sure I got to this last time we did. The news SGC has now lowered pricing to $15. Used to be 22 all trading card. Game cards are $9 each and they are currently running a series two tops, chrome special at $9 each.

SPEAKER 2: Some may know I'm a bulk subber for them. I just, turned in a bulk sub last week with the new price and was worried that it was going to take longer with, with them going to be a lot busier. And I, I gotta tell you, that it's on its way back to me very, very quickly.

SPEAKER 2: So they're, they're handling the influx. As a matter of fact, this bulk up it got back will be getting back to me quicker than the one prior to the lower price announcement. So they are on point.

SPEAKER 2: And so, kudos to them stop me if you've heard this one before, but now WWE has pulled Panini S license to produce their cards much like last month when the NFL Players Association, did the same thing Panini has responded by, immediately filing a federal lawsuit in New York court to stop that.

SPEAKER 2: And at this point, Panini owes $5.6 million for the licensing agreement and the WWE not only is saying they don't want Panini to produce the card, they still want that $5.6 million.

SPEAKER 2: Which I don't, I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too, but, you know, little, little pull string pulling, I think's going on behind the scenes, WWE, said that, effective immediately, they would give the rights to producing their likenesses to fanatics.

SPEAKER 2: Like I said, stop me if you've heard this story before, different sport, but same version of events. So we'll have to wait and see how this plays out as well. A lot of, a lot of courtroom, battles going on right now. Hobby lawyer, Paul is gonna be, licking his chops.

SPEAKER 2: Speaking of fanatics, Harry Kane, the British soccer star, has signed an exclusive autograph and memorabilia deal, with fanatics in the millions but undisclosed. It's a multiyear deal. So he'll be exclusive to fanatics there and we'll close with the reas September auctions, are underway and they end September 24th at 9 p.m. Eastern. Some great items in this auction.

SPEAKER 2: Heavy, Mantels including 52 tops, 51 Bowman and 52 tops, autographed, 3.7 1000 items. So 3700 items in the auction.

SPEAKER 2: All items start at 10 bucks. That's re A's deal. There's four gold border. 1911 T 20 fives that are graded PS A seven. That is the highest grade for those particular four cards. A 68 cops. Venezuelan Maze graded PS A seven. Speaking of maze, they have a, ticket from the catch, you know, the one he made on Vic Wetz over his shoulder during the 19 54 World Series game one.

SPEAKER 2: They have a ticket from the game. They have a tight cab signed check and lots, lots more, 3700 items. All at least starting at a $10 bid. Auction runs till September 24th 9 p.m. Head over to Robert Edward auctions. Sign up if you're not already and get, see what you can get.

SPEAKER 7: And now our feature presentation.

SPEAKER 2: All right, continuing with our Legends Of The Hobby series. This one strikes close to home. And as you heard in the intro probably should have did it sooner, folks. But, I'm not there. There's no really order to the way I'm, I'm doing these, I just have a bunch of names of people I wanted to do eventually written down and just kind of picking one.

SPEAKER 2: So these are not in order of how I view them or rank them or anything like this. But again, this, this is, you know, I'm originally from New York City, but been here in Syracuse a while now and this gentleman is or was from the area born in 1900 in Central Square, New York, which is 15 miles north of here. And born in March of 1900.

SPEAKER 2: Not sure an exact date, grew up on a farm where Central Square, New York is mostly, especially at that time, farmland. It's more developed now as a young child, Jefferson be worked on his father's farm farm, but began collecting cards from soda and tobacco car companies. And he asked his dad to smoke different brands of tobacco so that he could collect them all.

SPEAKER 2: He was a complete, he wanted all of them. So as a young child, he, he, he got into to collecting. He graduated from Central High School in 1918, now known as Central Square High School. And he attended Syracuse University in late 1920. He went there for two years, got a business degree. And after high school or after college, he started working at the Syracuse Herald now known as the Syracuse Herald Journal.

SPEAKER 2: And then he became, he worked in the electrical field. He's an electrician, but for a company called Kraus Heins, he worked at Kraus Heins for 23 years. Little funny story. A little interesting tidbit about Kraus Heinz. I live three blocks away right now from Kraus Heins. It's still there, still functioning.

SPEAKER 2: But recently was purchased by another company called Eaton, Eaton. So it's now Eaton, but up until recently was Kraus Heinz.

SPEAKER 2: And, and you know, who knew that you know, Jefferson be basically worked in that building three blocks away from my house for 23 years, obviously. Before I was ever around, he passed away in 1963. I was born in 1972 in 1933 at the age of 33. He really ramped up his collecting again, a mass scene, cards and stamps, quite a big collection.

SPEAKER 2: And he, he published one of the first publications pertaining to card collecting called the Card Collectors Bulletin or the CCB. And if you have any of these C CBS in your collection, they're very rare and worth four figures. So, congratulations if you own a copy.

SPEAKER 2: And then he established his own cataloging of cards in the CCB. And that's, you know, many of those pre-war sets. He, he named them in a sense, you know, like the T 206, he had a system that he used, he gave cards produced by tobacco companies, a tea designation much like the T 20 sixes.

SPEAKER 2: He used for early candy and gum cards and he used PC for postcards. And then he had some other classifications that are not as, as widely known as, as those. And then gum cards issued in 1933. He start labeling with an R he collected more than, and baseball cards.

SPEAKER 2: He collected cigar bands, postcards, paper dolls, advertising just a AAA little bit of everything that he considered FM and almost like a hoarder, but not only did he collect them, he learned about him. And so he was viewed as a, his historic, a historian.

SPEAKER 2: People would go to him to find the provenance or the background of these, you know, releases or, or cards or, or, or other things, not just cards, like I said, postcards, stamps, and advertising cigar bands. And he knew the history behind everything he collected, he deep dived them, you know, before Google, he did all the, the leg work himself, you know, from the ground up system of cataloging.

SPEAKER 2: It's been called the, you know, Dewey Decimal System for collectables rather than, you know, library books. And so he started his publication in 1937 as the card collector's bulletin with this system of cataloging cards. It was also called the CCB. For short.

SPEAKER 2: In total, he had around 306,000 cards which he glued into three 194 albums today, we know that's sacrilegious, but back then they weren't viewed as necessarily monetary items and, you know, never a reason for why he mounted them in, in albums. But rumor has it that he was afraid he'd lose them. So by gluing them in the albums, that would not happen before he launched CCB.

SPEAKER 2: He had written six articles for a magazine called Hobbies between the years of 1935 and 1937. Again, January of 37 he started CCB and by 1939 had published eight versions. He was known for, you know, it was a price guide as well and he would put lower values on, on certain cards because he didn't want it to be necessarily about dollar signs.

SPEAKER 2: And so, you know, he, he stopped doing the CCB briefly to do his first catalog in 1939 the United States Card Collectors Bulletin this Kellog was where he introduced that card identification system that we still use today. In the hobby, he was a very detailed gentleman, including meticulous with spelling and types.

SPEAKER 2: And he produced 500 copies of that publication with 100 copies reserved for people who had already previously subscribed to the CCB. In 1939 he started the C CBC CB back up as a bimonthly publication with his own printing equipment. He, he advised people to run ads to acquire cards, visit antique shops and correspond with other collectors.

SPEAKER 2: So he's one of the first people to really, you know, highlight card community. Before it was a thing we know it. Today did not publish these publications to get rich. And quite frankly, he did not make a ton of money from his work. He made more of his money working at Kraus Heins as you know, putting detonators together and other electrical things that they produced.

SPEAKER 2: In 1947 he started to decline in health, starting with some arthritis, especially in his hands. And he started to make plans to leave his vast collection to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. And starting in 1948 he started to send his collection a little bit at a time to the museum. And then he traveled from the Syracuse area to Manhattan to place the card an album.

SPEAKER 2: He also traveled to bigger cities, Boston Chicago to attend card shows and was treated very respectfully for the work, that he did, did, he became a fixture at the Met in the late 19 fifties when he relocated to New York City. And he moved a small oak desk from his hometown into the corner of the print apartment.

SPEAKER 2: He was glued to pace his collection in the 640 albums measuring 12.5 inches by 15 inches. He photocopied the backs of the card. So he had all the vital information after he had mounted them on the pages knowing that the glue would damage the backs. I have one of those cards I recently acquired. It's an 18 90 long cut honest tobacco of a unknown named named actress.

SPEAKER 2: I'm trying to find out the name but right now I I have not got the name for that particular card while living in New York. He rented a room in a hotel near Madison Avenue in 26th street and received regular cortisone shots that were painful as the arthritis he was suffering from started to realize his time was running out and he worked more frantically to catalog his collection.

SPEAKER 2: And so he picked up the pace knowing the, you know, the sands in the hourglass were, you know, going through quickly Jefferson Burdo was known as kind of a quirky, odd guy, friendly, but sort of a loner nerdy type of guy. Never got married, never had children. And so unfortunately, there are no direct descendants of Jefferson Burdick on January 10th, 1963.

SPEAKER 2: Burdo pasted his last card in the album, put on his coat and announced I shan't be back the next day. He checked into the hospital where he died on March 13th, 1963. At the age of 63 his gravestone was bought by a family friend. He didn't have a gravestone until I believe 1997 when a family friend finally bought one. It's the one I talked about, in the, in the intro.

SPEAKER 2: And on it reads one of the greatest card collectors of all times. The June 1st 1963 edition of the Card Collectors Bulletin was memorialized to verdict. Many collectors called them their best friend in their guiding light, known as really the father of the hobby. And so I'll leave you. I hope you learned some stuff today.

SPEAKER 2: I hope, you know, I hope you recognize how important this gentleman was to the hobby. I'll leave you with a couple quotes from the man himself. He wrote quote from somewhere I inherited a love of picture. People hungered for pictures, a window to the past as they became more available. Every succeeding generation became more forgetful and the old pictures lost their sentimental value.

SPEAKER 2: And the last one I'll leave you with is my personal favorite. He said a card collection is a magic carpet that takes you away from work a day cares that havens of relaxing quietude where you can relive the pleasures and adventures of a past day brought to life in vivid picture and prose. End quote. And if that doesn't sum up the hobby or should, I don't know what does?