Baseball Punchboards

I recently picked up a couple of these interesting baseball punchboards.

I've always wanted a Diamond Dust punchboard and someday I'll probably get one.  The Diamond Dust version had actual ball players rolled up in the individual punch outs.

 

There were Diamond Dust punchboards in different eras.  The pictured board listed players such as Ott, DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Gehringer and Hubbell. 

Different players would win you different amounts of money with the largest win being $1.00. 

These were used in stores to stimulate commerce and keep customers spending money in the store.  There were all sorts of different punchboards but I like the baseball ones.

The "cards" that you pulled from these punchboards were crude drawings of the players that did actually resemble them with their names written across the bottom of the cards.

The Joe DiMaggio example shown is one of these cards.

As stated, there were different punchboards for different periods.  Pictured here is a later version from the 5o's.

The players listed on this board are the likes of Mantle, Kaline, Berra, Snider, Banks, Piersall and Kuenn.  Here is a close up of the top of the board,

 



Now let's take a look at the two punchboards that I picked up.  Remember, I would like to someday get myself a Diamond Dust board, but for now I will settle for these two.

 

 

 

Mine don't actually name any players on them.  They have plays that could happen in the course of a game and a matching number of candy as prizes for the different plays.  These can be had for a surprisingly low price tag (I'm sure because they are so generic) which puts them right in my wheel house. 

 

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a fun one.