Back to the grocery store today for some more food issues. All of these could be found in the bread aisle.
1984 Brewers Gardner's #13 Paul Molitor (These were regional issues from the Gardner Bakery Company in Wisconsin.)
1989 Nissen #20 Ted Williams (J.J. Nissen was a Maine-based bread company and in the late 1980s, Nissen breads were given a boost in star power in a slate of television and print advertisements featuring Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams and Bangor Daily News sports writer Bud Leavitt. I met Bud on several occasions and he was known to be a cantankerous sort not unlike his fishing buddy, Ted. This 20 card set was one quarter Red Sox featuring Boggs, Clemens, youngsters Ellis Burks and Mike Greenwell and of course Ted Williams. Other stars in the set were Mattingly, Canseco, Puckett, McGwire, Strawberry and the Mets' young wunderkind, Gregg Jefferies. The cards were packed loosely inside the loaves and could clearly be seen through the wrapper. I got the bright idea of going to the Nissen Thrift Store in town where they sold "day old" bread for a fraction of the price of a fresh loaf. I spent about $40 over the course of the promotion and bought close to 200 loaves there and put together many complete sets as well as grabbing every star card I could find. Pack searching 101! I donated most of the bread to the local homeless shelters and Rescue Missions and 30+ years later still have several complete sets of these cards to trade today.)
1990 Wonder Bread Stars #16 Nolan Ryan (The bread with the blue, red and yellow dots on the wrapper was the first to sell pre-sliced bread which led to the popular phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread".)
1991 Tip Top 1947 Reprints #131 Johnny Mize (These cards were put out by the Ward Bakery Company, one of the largest commercial bakers in a territory covering the market from Chicago to Boston, New York and Pittsburgh. This is a 1991 reprint of the 1947 Mize card from that set.)
1992 Ben's Super Hitters Discs #10 Ken Griffey Jr. (These discs were inserted in packs of Holsum hamburger and hot dog buns produced by Ben's Bakery in New Brunswick, Canada.)
1993 Clemente City Pride #6 Roberto Clemente (This is from a 6 card set of Clemente cards produced by Pittsburgh's City Pride Bakery, "the bakery with a heart". I still have the original bread wrappers these cards came in and unlike the Nissen cards, these were contained in a sealed pocket incorporated into the bread wrapper so they never actually touched the product. The wrapper promoted details of how you could help erect a statue of Clemente.)
1993 Metz Baking #17 Cal Ripken (This was issued by the Metz Baking Company originally founded in Sioux City, Iowa with subsidiaries throughout the upper Midwest.)
1996 Reds '76 Klosterman #2 Johnny Bench (Produced by Cincinnati's Klosterman Baking Company and featuring that city's hometown team, the Reds.)
2013 Panini Golden Age Bread For Energy #9 Buck Leonard
