PSA Magazine

PSA Set Registry: The 1957 Swift Meats Baseball Set

Peter Putman
Sep 22, 2017

PSA Set Registry

The 1957 Swift Meats Baseball Set

A Truly Quirky Entry in the World of Die-Cut, Punch-Out Baseball Cards

by Pete Putman

HEY, KIDS! (SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED)

In this day and age of smartphones and video streaming, it's hard to imagine how young boys and girls kept themselves amused before Netflix, Instagram, and Facebook. Baby boomers look back now on paper dolls, pocket-sized toy cars, jacks, board games, balsa wood gliders, hula hoops, and jump ropes with a combination of nostalgia and bewilderment: How did we get so much enjoyment out of such simple playthings? (Yes, I'll admit it - I'm a boomer... )

A highlight of our day back then was a trip to the grocery store with Mom. We'd pick up boxes of cereal from the shelves and inspect them to see if there was a baseball or football player card showing on the back panel or cleverly packaged inside. We looked for trading cards everywhere - inside packages of hot dogs, on milk cartons, or on boxes of pudding. If we found them, the wailing began: "Can we get this, Mom? Please? Please? PLEASE???"

At home, armed with a pair of scissors and sometimes supervised by Mom or Dad, we carefully cut out numerous "Hey, kids!" mail-in offers, saved up our box tops, bottle caps, and wrappers, gathered up what little spare change we had, filled in those 3x5 cards, and mailed everything in to some obscure post office box address, vigilantly monitoring the mailbox for days afterward as we anticipated the arrival of yet another cardboard treasure.

Never mind that the average shelf life of some of these treasures was a few weeks to a few months before we lost interest (or just lost the actual cards) and moved onto the next box of cereal/pudding/oatmeal/chocolate mix. Said boxes were emptied of their sugary contents in short order and tossed out. Eventually, we grew up and put aside childish things, as the old saying goes. (Well, most of us did.)

THE GAME

It is quite the testament to our strong feelings of nostalgia that so much of this supposedly "ephemeral" stuff still survives five and six decades later. That's why we continue to place such a high price on the condition of paper novelties that were mostly worth less than a penny when we first came across them. It's all about the memories and the feeling you got when that special envelope finally showed up at our doorstep.

Swift & Company, a meat-packing company founded in the 1880s by Gustavus Swift and one of the "Big Four" meat-packing brands in Chicago, was a major player in processed meat products. The company is best known for inventing the first practical refrigerated beef railroad car around 1880, which revolutionized the long-distance delivery of fresh meat to markets across the country.

Sixty years ago, Swift Meats enticed kids to buy their meat products by enclosing a mail-in coupon inside each package of Swift's Premium Franks. Send Swift two package labels and 25 cents and they would mail you the full set of 18 die-cut cards and a folded paper baseball field packaged in a white envelope that proclaimed "All the thrills of a real game!" Wow, what a deal!

After some careful (or sloppy - we were kids after all) punching-out and assembly of each player's head, torso, and limbs, two teams of nine colorful, cardboard players were ready to take each other on. The 16" x 18" field had, in addition to a scoreboard and billboard advertisement for Swift's hot dogs ("A Sure Hit!"), a metal spinner riveted to the surface. Give it a twirl and maybe you'd hit a single or a double. Or maybe even a home run! (Or maybe you'd just be out.)

You positioned your defense and pitchers in the field, set up a batter from the opposite team, and spun away. A text block on the lower left of the field explained the rules of the game (like any 10-year-old wouldn't know the rules of baseball) and also contained a cryptic message: "In playing the game, due to the fact that one of the outfielder cut-outs has been made a batter, use an outfielder from the team at bat to fill in his position."

THE PLAYERS

The cards shipped with the game featured some well-known players and some slightly more obscure ones from most American League and National League teams. The National League battery, consisting of Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres (#1) and Cincinnati Reds catcher Ed Bailey (#5), was countered by A.L. ace Billy Pierce (#4) of the Chicago White Sox and signal caller Gus Triandos (#2) of the Baltimore Orioles.

How about the infields? For the Senior Circuit, Dale Long (#3) of the Chicago Cubs had first base covered. Junior Gilliam (#10) of the Dodgers took care of second base, while Johnny Logan (#12) of the Milwaukee Braves patrolled the shortstop position. On the third base line, Ken Boyer (#8) of the St. Louis Cardinals kept an eye out for grounders hit toward left field.

The A.L. infield players weren't exactly slouches. Vic Wertz (#6) of the Cleveland Indians was positioned at first base, watching for double play balls from either Nellie Fox (#7) of the White Sox at second or Gil McDougald (#9) of the New York Yankees at shortstop. The third-sacker was Ed Yost (#11) of the Washington Senators.

There was a little bit of star power in the outfield. For the American League, Bill Tuttle (#14) of the Detroit Tigers, Jack Jensen (#15) of the Boston Red Sox, and Rocky Colavito (#18) of the Cleveland Indians - a rookie in 1957 - patrolled between the foul lines. Their counterparts from the N.L. were "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron (#13) of the Braves, Frank Robinson (#16) of the Reds, and Richie Ashburn (#17) of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Pierce was an excellent choice on the mound (he won 20 games in 1957) and Podres posted a league-leading ERA of 2.66 that year. Aaron was named the N.L. MVP, and along with Logan, won the World Series over the Yankees. (He also hit his uniform number in home runs - 44!) Ashburn led his league in walks with 94, while Fox was the leader in hits (196) and McDougald finished in a three-way tie for triples with nine.

OK, we could work with those lineups. But why weren't there any players from the New York Giants?  Wasn't Willie Mays available? After all, he went on to lead the N.L. in stolen bases (38), triples (20), and slugging percentage (.625) in 1957. And how could Swift overlook Reds shortstop Roy McMillan and Cardinals outfield legend Stan Musial, both of whom started in the 1956 All-Star Game?

Players from the Kansas City Athletics - also jokingly known back then as the Yankees' major league farm team - were also left out in the cold, as were the Pittsburgh Pirates. The absence of any A's players remains a puzzle to this day, but the dearth of Pirates in the Swift set could be explained by endorsement contracts offered by rival hot dog brand Kahn's, whose 1957 regional baseball card set focused exclusively on Pittsburgh and Cincinnati players.

Another puzzler: Why were there two Braves and two White Sox represented, but only one Cub (and it wasn't Ernie Banks)? You'd think the hometown teams would get some consideration in a set like this. Even the Reds got two players on this paper All-Star team, and one of them (Robinson) also appeared in the Kahn's offering.

And the Yankees? After winning their sixth World Series in eight years and sending six players to the 1956 All-Star Game, they were only represented by McDougald, who was in the process of moving to 3rd base in 1957. What about three-time MVP and catcher Yogi Berra, MVP and Triple Crown winner Mickey Mantle, or infield newcomers Tony Kubek and Bobby Richardson? We'll never know ...

THE CARDS

The game cards came from Swift Meats on three panels, six to a panel. When the die-cut cards were separated, they measured 3-1/2" by 4" with rounded corners. The base of each card listed the player's name, position, and team, while the set number was printed on that portion of the card that would likely be discarded after assembly.

On the reverse, legends identified each part of the torso, while the base carried this message: "Before assembly, let card dry out. Press out pieces. Assemble as shown in illustration." (Swift's marketing department probably should have added, "On second thought, let Dad or Mom put these figures together. You'll just screw it up.") The reference to letting the cards dry out may have meant that Swift planned to ship game cards inside hot dog packages a la Wilson's, Stahl-Meyer, and Kahn's - but apparently, they never did.

Like any other die-cut issue, the value is in untouched cards - those that weren't assembled. According to older Beckett guides, six-card panels that were never separated carried a 25 percent price premium over individual player cards. However, encapsulating panels that large would be problematic.

These 1957 Swift Meats cards are not easy to come by. How's this for scarce? As of this writing, PSA has graded 552 examples, a number that would represent .002% of all the 1957 Topps cards in the PSA Population Report. Perhaps surprisingly, a high percentage of these cards are in strong condition: 64 have been judged PSA GEM-MT 10s, with 159 more earning PSA MINT 9s, three PSA NM-MT+ 8.5s, and 81 PSA NM-MT 8s.

In contrast, only 18 player cards fall within the range of Poor to Very Good condition, while an additional 27 rest in PSA VG-EX 4 holders. The second-largest population of 1957 Swift Meats (94) has been graded PSA EX 5 and PSA EX+ 5.5, with 72 PSA EX-MT 6s and one PSA EX-MT+ 6.5, and 30 PSA NM 7s making up the remainder of the overall population. There are no particular "tough" cards - all have at least 22 examples graded, with Aaron's #13 card being the most popular with 44 registered.

HEY, KIDS (WHO NEVER GREW UP)!

If you feel like you need a new collecting challenge, then the 1957 Swift Meats baseball set is a worthy prize. While there are PSA-encapsulated examples available on eBay, the bigger challenge would be to find a raw set of cards - or even better, uncut sheets of cards - along with the game board and mailer. And you'd be just as likely to come across everything in a yard sale or antique mart as at a card show.

And if you are lucky enough to strike pay dirt, resist the temptation to punch out and assemble the cards. You're too old for that kind of thing anyway ... right?

For more information on the 1957 Swift Meats Baseball card set, please visit https://www.psacard.com/cardfacts/baseball-cards/1957-swift-meats/32551.


Please feel free to contact SMR at [email protected] if you have any additional information or comments. Thank you to Levi Bleam from 707 Sportscards LTD and Pete Putman for providing images for this article. Please note that the Population Report figures quoted are those as of August 2017.