Thursday, August 25, 2022

A Back Stamp Leads to a New Discovery for Me

 There are many many different stamps on the backs of T206s.

They range from images to dates to names or numbers.  I have an entire online project documenting these stamps.  I have known of one particular stamp for some time now, and have a few documented on my site, but I never knew anything about the person who stamped their name on the cards.

A recent post on Net54 mentioned this stamp and who the person was however.  Which led to a little more research and I was amazed at what I found out.

Here is the stamp I'm talking about. It reads:

L. KURZROK M.D.

9 E 96 ST. N.Y.C 28

As it turns out, Dr. Lawrence Kurzrok MD was a practicing physician in New York City for 41 years.  He retired to Longboat Key near Sarasota, FL in 1971 and passed away Feb 12, 1976. 

He was a specialist in obstetrics, gynecology and endocrinology and supervised the birth of over 10,000 babies.  

In the 1930's he ranked 10th nationally in tennis and won the Greater New York public courts title five times.  

He was a Navy Commander during WWII and received two battle stars.

All of this is amazing enough, but this is a vintage and prewar baseball card blog, so why am I going on about some doctor who stamped some cards?

Well, as it turns out, Dr. Kurzrok was a pioneer in card collecting and can be noted along with such names as Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter and Charles Bray.  He was the President of the Card Collectors Society of NY and often held meetings at his home located at the address stamped on his cards.

He would also meet in front of groups to discuss raising money for collecting clubs in high schools and colleges believing that collecting cards was a great way to learn about all sorts of things.  He one said:

 "The knowledge printed on these cards is so great you can't help but learn from them - You can learn anything from how to build a house or make a window frame to the names of the Kings of France."

The doctor had amassed a collection of over five million cards of all sorts of different subjects, but did state that his baseball cards were his favorite.  He had over 2,000 Old Judge cards at one point. 

After he passed away, Rob Lifson purchased the bulk of his collection and it has since been dispersed throughout the hobby.

Dr. Kurzrok was a pioneer I had never heard of before.  And I was fascinated to learn more about him.  He sounded like a really nice guy and someone I would've loved to have known.  


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

1 comment:

GTT said...

That was very interesting - I'd never heard of Kurzok before either!