Blind Date

Well another year has gone and come, seemingly in record time!  It's hard to believe but this blog will turn 10 years old in September and there's still a ton of Topps I intend to cover.  Today though, I'll turn again to a past post, namely one covering the still somewhat mysterious True Fact Mini Comics.

Previously your intrepid blogger was able to narrow down the date of issue for this 5 booklet set to 1966-77.  However, a recent bit of luck has given me the means to whittle that range down and come up with a possible means of distribution.

Without getting too maudlin, my late father was a junior high school teacher for almost 40 years and we have been clearing his massive amount of collectibles out of the family home these past several months.  During that stretch, exactly one Topps items has turned up, which is not unexpected as he was not a card or sports collector. However, the one item he had was a No. 5 True Fact Mini Comic.  The kicker is that is was inscribed to my dad by two of his students back in the day.  This being the internet I've obscured parts of names but this is what presented itself:

So a little name matching with the school district on the ol' Google machine led me to a wedding announcement (and age at the time) for one of these young ladies.  Working backwards and knowing the school covered grades 6, 7  & 8, I was able to get a date range of 1967-69 for the set.

What I am now leaning toward as a theory of distribution, is that Topps somehow had these introduced to various schools at the time as a teaching aid.  This makes some sense as:

1) a teenage girl had to get a copy of an extremely obscure and hard-to-find issue;
2) no wrapper or box is known, and
3) the set covers historical subjects.

Why Topps would do this, I do not (yet) know.

Just for fun I've scanned a few more pages of what is a pretty far out comic:

Van Buren is my favorite lesser known president.  This is primarily due to watching a lot of "Seinfeld" where the Van Buren Boys would regularly harass Kramer and George but I have to say his being known as a "dude" is hilarious!

Chester A. Arthur, represent:

Nice square cut on these babies.....



I can't really say I've ever thought of the Boxer Rebellion as a notable US victory but there you are.  On the other hand, Benjamin Harrison seems like he was a real wuss:

The separate beds are a hoot!

We're in for a fun year kids, stay tuned........