What are these? #1: Harlem Globetrotters cards

[sanjosefuji]

This weekend I walked around the flea market and picked up a few things for my collection. If you're interested, scroll down and read my previous post... where I wrote about my purchases.

However... there's one thing I left out (on accident of course). While browsing one of the antique dealers (you know the people who sell all of the old magazines from the 30's, rusty toy fire trucks, and old soda pop bottles), I stumbled upon a small stack of cards.


They're not your typical sports card with a picture on the front and stats on the back. Nope... these have a cartoon picture on the front and another one on the back. There seems to be a total of 11 different cards.

Dribbles



Granny



Bobby Joe



Gip



Pabs



Meadowlark



Geese



Curly



Bus



& 2 Balls (the version on the left has a little dust cloud on the ball)


All eleven cards have the same picture on the back. It's a team portrait with Dribbles & Granny:



Back

It may be a little difficult to see, because my scanner cropped the cards... but they have rounded edges like a deck of cards. It looks like they came from one of those cheap Dollar Tree "concentration" games, but a lot older.


If you look closely at the back of the card, you can see that the cards were printed in 1971 and says Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. So after a little research, I discovered that there was a Globetrotters cartoon on CBS from 1970 to 1972. Check out the intro:




However... that's about all that I could find on these cards. So my question of the day is: Have you ever seen these cards? If so, do you know if they're part of a game? Are there more than 11 cards?


Any information is appreciated.


Oh... and just in case you were wondering... I paid $5 for the lot. I was able to create two 11-card sets, with a 14 extra cards (6 characters & 8 balls). Unfortunately none of the cards are in mint condition, however they're pretty nice and most of them still have the original gloss.


I figure... $5 for a small piece of history. One of the sets will go into my PC and the other I'll pass down to my nephew. He loves watching them play every year when the come to San Jose.


Happy Monday everyone!




More...