Welcome back, loyal listeners of the Stacking Slabs Podcast Network to season four episode two of the WNBA card podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin. I go by at cold lunch cards on the Instagram machine and on some other corners of the Internet as well, like Twitter and Discord. And I am so excited to bring more collector driven and community focused content to you guys this season, and I'm even more excited to introduce today's special guest. Our first guest is Cindy who goes by at giant legends on Instagram.

She is the founder of On Her Mark, a project that's rooted in true passion for women's sports and visual history. What began as a master's thesis on media representation turned into the discovery of a vintage women's trading card and eventually, one of the largest and most impressive collections of women's vintage sports cards in the world, spanning from the eighteen fifties all the way up until title nine. Her work is about more than collecting. It's about preserving stories, honoring the women who are featured on these cards we're gonna be talking about in making history both accessible and authentic. I'm honored to have you here, Cindy, today for this episode.

Gonna be talking all about building the foundation before the WNBA. We're gonna be talking about pre WNBA best women's basketball cards and why representation of this time frame matters. I cannot wait to dive into this. Without further ado, welcome, Cindy, to the podcast. How are you today?

Thank you. Boy, that was a humbling introduction. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. Awesome.

I'm I'm super excited to to have you today. And why don't we kick things off or tip some things off to talk about how you got here, why you're on podcast today, and and kinda introduce yourself if I missed something in the intro Yeah. About giant legends. No. I think you captured it all.

You know, it it just it was a collection that started kinda serendipitously over finding, one card at a yard sale. But I was a kid you know, a childhood collector, but it was baseball cards. And so it's really interesting to watch the WNBA's, popularity in both popularity as a game, but also in trading cards and a hobby just explode. And what's fascinating about our conversation is that as a team sport, this is probably the one area that even though it's the most popular league now, as a team sport, it has probably the fewest amount of cards in my collection. That's so interesting.

It's just ironic. So there's there's things to say here, but, there's reasons why, and we'll get into it. Reasons why there are so few cards back from and for our audience, these are gonna go mostly back to, like, the nineteen twenties, thirties. And then there is a, like, a large jump into the, you know, the nineteen nineties. Beautiful.

I can't wait to get into that. That's it's very cool to think about what was happening back in the day, and, hopefully, the context that you provide will be we'll we'll figure out why there's kind of a a gap in the in the production there. We'll talk about what did exist, what collectors look back on today as being important from that time. But I guess, I the first question that I wanted to ask you about was more personal collecting wise. So I wanna ask you how this era, which I think we're talking about twenties to title nine, which is in the nineties.

How does this era kind of connect to your overall collecting philosophy, and how do women's basketballs fit in there despite the fact that they don't represent take up a big volume of your collection? I I pick up everything, under women's sports heading, if you will, as a collector. Started to focus pre title nine because I needed a focus. And then when I after I found my first vintage card, it, like, literally set this, sent sent this electricity through my body, and I just and that was a nineteen twenties card, I believe, twenties, thirties. But it just sent this, like, electricity through my body.

And so I just I was in my master's program, as you mentioned. I was, had limited resources, limited means. So I decided to focus on pre pre seven nineteen seventy two cards. And the other reason too was that they were rarer and they were harder to find. Whereas the nineties cards, sort of I learned a lot about, like, where they were hiding.

If the if the dealers didn't know, you know, I knew. And so they were easier to find. But, yeah, the early ones were hard. And so, eventually, I decided this is worthy of a book. This is such a great way to talk about women's sports history through this very common popular, easily accessible medium of trading cards and sports cards.

So I've been working on a book for a while, and I decided because there's a lot of history to it too that I wanted to cap it at 1940. So it's like as far back as I can find, which is about 1885 or so, and and then cap it around the World War two time. And so I really specialize right now anyways in the history around the nineteen twenties and thirties and and because that's where most of the cards are. They fall off after World War two, and they just never regain the same volume. We're and we're talking internationally in women's sports, the same volume as they were, say, like in the nineteen thirties.

Awesome. That's a good nugget. And I guess that's a good way to kick off and really get into this conversation. And I wanna start by setting the context, for the listeners today to understand what was going on, not with the league because the WNBA wasn't a thing until 1997, but more women's basketball in general. Could you paint a picture for us of what the state of women's basketball looked like?

And you you mentioned internationally. I'm curious, how that weaves in here. Because there's so few cards, I have not done a ton of research on them, within my book research. But I can tell you that and this is we're gonna focus this on the context of North America, The US, and Canada. And those two areas in the twenties had very popular leagues that were typically around, employers' leagues because employers would make sporting leagues for to create help create better morale within their employees.

You know, basketball started as a college sport for for women in, Smith College in the late eighteen hundreds. And what these women would do is anything that they would get in college around sport, they would bring it back to their hometown. But there are so few women that were allowed to go into college at that point. It was considered a waste of time in a lot of ways. The whole focus around women back then, what and that, you know, when when basketball hit Smith College, like, we're talking the turn of the Victorian era.

So the whole focus for women was motherhood, getting married, homekeeper, housekeeper, birthing babies. I mean, that was their focus. And so things like mental work around education was considered energy that was taken away from motherhood. Even walking was like a form of exercise, which it is, of course, but that was it. Right.

To the extent. So something like exerting like basketball was almost controversial. It really challenged the norms around femininity, especially, you know, as a team sport. That meant cooperation. That meant sweating and and aggression sometimes.

And so it really flew in the face of what the use US, in particular, thought of as women's sports. And Canada, you know, is somewhat similar. They had women's leagues too and a few very, very popular teams that we'll get into in the cards, but particularly the Edmonton grads. Babe Deidrickson in The US, I think, put employers casually on the map because that was her start before she went into the Olympics, and then later one of the cofounders of the LPGA. So there's there's deep roots in women's basketball.

It's just they weren't at the caliber or the notoriety perhaps of the WNBA. Certainly didn't have the publish publishing machine behind them, and and news coverage, etcetera. But, you know, it's it's not a new sport to The US or Canada. It's just the amount of spotlight that's been on it. Absolutely.

How would you describe the sports kind of, like, culture at the time? Were people engaging with women's basketball when it was in that kind of, like, seed form or it was something that just, like, existed and people people just let it be? They it was somewhat popular. I mean, there was reports of, you know, fans coming out, like, say, 1,500, which isn't a lot in today's college attendance. But back then, I mean, that's a lot for a local game or a local traveling team.

It it's it's pause here to kind of put this Okay. Audience. And so they would separate the audience where men men and boys couldn't watch them. Oh. There was still, like, this this purity, this prudence about women in sports.

There were also, there were pretty ardent women's, sporting I don't know if they're well, you there are organizations that tried to control women's sports in The US. And they, particularly around pack and field, did not wanna see the same kind of competitive models that men were following. So they didn't didn't wanna sell tickets. They didn't want publicity over one athlete. They wanted what they called play days in school where everybody played, nobody won, everybody it was all about participation.

And this actually really set women's sports back for decades. And it's really sad to think even though they had good intentions in their own desire and their own meaning, in their own what they saw, I guess, as purpose, they had good intentions, but it really set women back to track they were trying to they were trying to protect girls and women from the pitfalls that they were seeing in men's sports, like a lot of the corruption and, you know, using of athletes, etcetera. So they had good intentions. It just it really did set women's sports back for years. Absolutely.

Yeah. I've seen that until recently with the NCAA. 100%. That was where my mind went immediately. That's such an interesting context.

It's funny how these things, carry over to today and to the modern sports sports world. And I guess this is a good I this gives the audience a good idea of where we're at, what what women's basketball looks like. And I I do wanna bring in the cards here because that's what we're here to talk about. You know? And that's that's what gets us excited.

That's what caused that electricity to shoot through your body when you've done that vintage sports card. So I suppose why don't we get into kind of some cards or sets that stick out from this era, which I know spans multiple decades. But why don't we get started with that? Okay. Alright.

Let's start with the Babe Dederichsen card. You can put it up, I'm also gonna show it just so you can see for size. This was put out in 1935. This is some would not say this is a card, but because people do collect things that were cut out of Wheaties boxes, you know, especially in the fifties. Babe was the first person, the first woman, excuse me, the first woman featured on a Wheaties box.

It's pictured she's pictured in her, AAU basketball uniform. And, she became pretty, well known in basketball. Like, she was collecting national headlines or securing getting national headlines in basketball again, and that's what led her into eventually getting on to the Olympic team. But she was hired by employers casualty, and she was a typist. She was a secretary, but pretty much they were using her for her athletic ability.

And so they would travel around The US, and she would just, you know, wipe people off the claw off the court. But I love this card. It's really hard to find largely because of its size. You know, it's it's huge. Yeah.

It looks like It it's for people that are are just it's it kinda looks like a picture frame when Cindy holds it up holds it Yeah. Not necessarily a a small card that can fit in your palm. Right. And so because it's larger, just, you know, standing the test of time, it's it's just so easy to get it damaged over over the years. I was really lucky to finally pick this up.

I would like to get it graded someday because I think this is just pristine condition. But, it's one of the only cards that I know of that shows her playing basketball. So Really? That's So I mean And what are the other cards? I'll do one I'm sorry.

I do wanna say one other caveat. Yeah. Within my collection, I really try to focus on the cards that were printed around the time the athlete was competing, And that's because I believe that those were the cards that influenced or affected the women or the girls in that day. It's nice to see aftermarket cards today like Babe and Althea Gibson have way more cards today than they did when they're actually competing. But that's why I focus on just those cards.

So I don't these aren't aftermarket cards. That makes complete sense. Now when you say that, you know, for people that are listening, the card features babe, like, holding the the ball with two hands next to her face. You talked about cards that maybe didn't have that. Was she featured with just, like, not playing basketball?

Was that something that was happening? No. It's mostly around track and field. Track and field experience in the nineteen thirty two Olympics and then later in the LPGA. But there's there's more in the track world, less in the LPGA world.

But to my knowledge, this is the only one where she's got a basketball. Beautiful. Well, this one stuck out to me. I think Wheaties has been iconic. It's interesting that she's the first woman that Was featured on there.

Were there any other cards? I suppose we've we've got slides for days here of Yeah. Things that we wanna talk about. Are there any other ones that stick out? Then the early cards, yes.

I would say the one if you can go to the one about the so called Princeton. This is from a series of four cards. These are college cards, and there's four Ivy League cards. And what I find interesting about this one so, again, this is another pretty large card. If I hold it up against the aftermarket card, which is a remake of it, which is a normal size, you can see the size difference.

I did some history. I did some background checking into this because women were not in Princeton when this card came out. It does use their colors. There was a sister school of Evelyn Evelyn College, which was next door, but I couldn't find any record that they played basketball. So that's the only thing I can think of that these women could be were from actually, Evelyn College.

But, yeah, when everyone says it's a Princeton card, I just kinda like, is it really? I don't I'm not I'm not a 100 sure. So, yeah, there's there's some digging there. But it was popular enough for I believe it was top. I'm sorry.

I have to get my glasses. Skybox to, you know, make a remake of it. But in it, they never mentioned on the back. They'd say nothing about Princeton. Princeton.

Just talk about, college I mean, well, yeah, college basketball history. So I think they're onto it too that it might not be Princeton. Is that is that kind of the driving factor of your interest in this era of card is discovering kind of those through lines, those stories of these women? Because to my understanding, you know, what we have shown here is that these these women aren't named. These are these are just, kind of characters drawn onto a card to represent something.

Is that kind of a driving force of why you dig deeper into cards? Is that is that the motivating factor trying to figure out what these stories are and why they're important? Yeah. That's one of them. You know, what's seen, what's said about them, definitely that's definitely a rabbit hole.

The other one, there was the patterns that come about. So, you know, my collection's pretty large between what I actually own and and a database including cars I don't own. But there's patterns that evolve, and there's patterns that evolve around. What decades or what years produce more cards than others? What countries produce most cards more cards than others?

And with that, excuse me, you know, that's where the nuggets are. Like, what was going on in those countries? Because I think that the dangerous thing and the thing that's easy to do is to look at women's sports back then as if the same standards today in society of acceptance. And they were about as far away from today as you could get. And so, that's part of the what the book is trying to pull out too is to understand that these women were really bucking the norm when they were when they were participating in sport.

And especially team sports like basketball, you know, ice hockey was acceptable. Figure skating was accept not ice hockey. Excuse me. Figure skating, swimming, horseback riding. Like, there are tennis.

There were a few acceptable sports. And, you know, if you'll see, these are all individual sports too. So yeah. So it it's just really fascinating that I'm I'm not a historian by academic training, but I love pictures and always have. And I love how these open up that interest, and unlock that interest for me to dig deeper.

Yeah. That's that's super cool. I'm excited to to get into some more of these. This one stuck out to me personally just because of the fact of the the anonymous factor of it. Yeah.

That's something you don't see. I I I can't think of a modern especially women's sports card that that is an anonymous anonymous person featured. So, just an interesting this this one really stuck out to me. So thanks for Yeah. It out and introducing it because I I had never seen it before.

We we had this conversation. It's it's interesting too. I noticed on the Skybox, they're not trying to imitate the same colors, either. But, again, it all ties back to, like, colleges are very particular about their colors. So yeah.

Just noticed that. Yeah. When passing today's NIL landscape, that would be a violation of some sort of Right. I just also love how these older cards, they capture what they were wearing. You know?

And can can imagine, like, playing in those shoes or the I don't even know what you call them. They're kind of bloomers. They're kind of not. Yeah. No.

Thank you. Pass on that. Pass on that. Yep. Alright.

What card do you wanna get into next? Go to the the the old English one, the Netball one. So there's a couple in this series. These came out of England. I actually tried to secure this card, from a buyer in England, not through eBay, but a direct sell.

And sadly, somewhere between his country and The US, somebody stole it. Yeah. And we were both pretty shocked about that, but never got it. But, yeah, these sell for, you know, always in the three digits, if not four, depending on their their quality and all. But yeah.

So this is what some a lot of people consider the earliest of, women's sports cards were these netball cards. And, again, there's a couple of them, couple different versions. And netball was just a little bit different. I mean, in in name, netball, they still play competitively today in Australia where it doesn't have a a backboard, basically. And in Australia, you can play men against women.

Men and women are on the same team, and there's rules around that. But back here, you know, it's hard to see, and it looks like the net is actually the basket, which it would be anyways in that ball, but the I can't see a backboard in this. And so I don't know a whole lot about this. I know it's blank on the back. J Banes is the maker, and it's part of a larger series.

Most of them feature men's cards, and that's pretty typical of when you can find women's cards is in a series of men's cards. Yeah. And for for our audio listeners, this card is kind of shaped like a shield almost Yeah. Which is interesting. I think, you know, so far we've talked about the the sizes that that seems to be a common, discussion point of these older vintage cards.

This is a a design I have never seen before, this shape. I find that such an interesting little tidbit whether or not that purposeful, whether it meant something at the time. But, the way that we've migrated to a more consistent standard design, I think, is also an indication of of where we where we were versus where we are today. True. True.

Alright. Let's go to, the Canadian cards. Yeah. So these are where most of them most of the cards live in the nineteen twenties is this Canadian series. There's two.

One is Dominion chocolates and one is Willard's chocolates. And both were, it was one card per chocolate item, which was usually a chocolate bar. And there's a little bit of a difference. Dominion's chocolates, the cards were only about Canadian athletes, whereas Willard's chocolates were the top athletes around the world at the time. And so they have, like, a different niche in collectability.

Some of the Canadian chocolates cards I'm sorry. The Dominion chocolates were athletes that we might not recognize today, but in their province, they were quite popular and well known. So these feature a few of the basketball teams between the Edmonton grads and Ambrokes that you can see there in the middle. And one of the most prolific players, of her day, Bobby Rosenfeld on the far left. And Bobby was, you know, like Babe, she was basically the Canadian babe.

I'm gonna I just call her that because she also excelled in every sport that she touched. She started in basketball, but she also played ice hockey and many other sports. But both of them went to the Olympics, but Bobby competed in the nineteen twenty eight Olympics, which was the first time track and field was offered. So, of course, this isn't an olymp basketball Olympic sport. But she won a a silver medal in the 100 meter dash and a gold in the four by 100 relay.

And the silver medal was like a hair, you know, away from gold. It was very, very, very close. But she was a player in the Canadian League. And you can see on the bottom card, it doesn't mention her, but she is the first player behind the coach. So says me.

Yes. That's what she looks like. I mean, that is her. And it's neat to find her, like, pop up in other cards, especially when she's not named because she has many things named after her from awards to parks. I mean, she's still relevant in Canada today.

She died young. Sorry. She didn't die young. I shouldn't say that. She ended her career young because she had a severe case of arthritis.

So I think in 1933, she had to retire, and she went into sports writing. So yeah. So her cut her career was cut short. The, one in the middle is of the shamrocks, and this is one of my favorite cards if you can see it closer. This is lovely, graphics today.

You know, what would be today's graphics of what they could do back then where they cut out the little bitty pictures and they put them in the shamrock. And I just find it adorable because one of the things that's kind of it both turns me off about today's cards, but it also I get it. It's and that is the what I call whizbanger y about the graphics. Like, it has to be something new every time a new card comes out, and it has to capture your eye, and it's like eye candy. And these older cards have this simplicity Mhmm.

To them that I just love because it for me, it just, like, draws me into who they are. It draws me into the story of that time. And so, yeah, the Shamrock's card, again, just super super neat because they were doing the best they could with the graphics at that time of literally cutting and pasting them in. Right. The, the last one on the far right, a 1925 dominion chocolates.

This one has the coach in the middle, and these always had male mostly had male coaches. Although, some of The US, beliefs were, like, women should coach women's teams, but that didn't always happen either. But again, they, you know, did the same kind of thing. They they they put they they just cut and paste and put them into the the picture and create a card out of it. The other thing you'll notice is that some of these cards, you see the little tab on the bottom.

So, you know, cards in these days always came with a product. The manufacturers knew that cards were popular and collectible, and so they used the trading cards to sell product. If you wanted more cards, you bought more product. But these in particular, the Dominion series, if you cut out that tab and set it back with, I don't know how many, the whole set or something, to the manufacturer, you got a prize. And so they were smart though because they created a tab.

Like, a lot of the manufacturers were like, send back the whole card. Who wants to do that? It better be a good prize. But, yeah, these actually said the sorry. They created a tab, and so you could the person could keep the card.

And so you'll see some with the tab, some without. And on a collector base, the card has a little bit more value if it's complete, which means it has the tab still, as opposed to the bottom one which doesn't. I have never collected for value. I you know, like the financial side of it because I don't sell these. I do collect for, you know, trying to buy the best quality that I can.

So anyway, so that's that's a little tidbit, whereas Willard's didn't have that redemption offer. That's so interesting. Both both the pairing of the idea of cards being accompanied by products, but also the idea of a a redemption, is very interesting and something we see carried over in a different way today. So this is this is is this the earliest you can you can recall of that being the kind of Mhmm. Structure that cards had, or is this just maybe one of the more popular ones?

In women's, I would say this this probably is one of the earlier ones because the cards that, like, predate the twenties are often not of, you know I mean, there's some of actual athletes. But, yeah, I don't see I don't see the redemption, offered a lot and say, like, German cards, which are the predominant manufacturer manufacturing country of them. So, yeah, I was just gonna see on the back, some of these say what they actually get, and I'm sorry. I wanted to see if it did. You know, it just says to send it back for a prize.

In the advertising, you can see what the prize is. And some of them said something like, if, if girls like, if you don't want a hockey club or hockey stick, you would get candy. It was very sexist. You know? I was like Right.

They might play hockey. They did play hockey in Canada. Of course. And then there's the, the Edmonton grads card, which I don't have, but I think I sent you a picture of it if you have it. Nope.

It's their team card. Nope. Those are the French ones. I'm sure if we have Yeah. Let's see if we can add it to the actual recording.

This is probably the most, the Edmonton's, grad card is the most sought after one, and I I wish I had it. I'm still looking for it. It is through Wilderness Chocolate, and it's a team card. Super hard to find because the Edmonton's grads were so spectacular. I mean, they were incredibly famous for their day.

They won, like, 17 consecutive national titles for women's Olympics. Women's Olympics were, their own Olympics that only happened in Europe, and it was to push the, International Olympic Committee to add more track and field to the women's, menu of of events. So that's the background of the women's Olympics a little bit, but they had basketball too. So, Edmonton's grads traveled. They played the London Shamrocks in 1922, which was the Shamrocks card.

So overall, you know, between 1915 and 1941, they won 502 games and lost 20. That's how good they were. Wow. So they're like the the vintage Yukon, basically. Exactly.

Exactly. Tennessee, Yukon. Yeah. Definitely. It's interesting that you bring up.

I feel like, it's not often at least in today's game, you know, there is a EuroLeague in Europe, but most of the attention on women's basketball today, which maybe has changed over the past five to ten years, but is really in The US. But you sent me these this card, which I thought was interesting, and well as well as some others, which are French based. Could you maybe about what's going why why are we talking about French basketball right now? What's going on with that? I don't actually know a lot about the background of these cards, because it's in that time period after the my my studying for the book.

So I I don't have a yeah. Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about them, but I just found it interesting. Like I said, I pick up everything I can find Right. In the time period that I collect, and it it's it is clearly French. They are plain.

You can show the other ones too that are in color. And it's just what to me it shows is that women always played. And I think that's the story behind these cards is so many people think that either even if they know about title nine, women didn't play until after title nine or women didn't play before Caitlin Clark. Right. However you wanna frame it, like, there's no past reference to understand that women have always played and different in different countries have had different levels of comfort or support around in playing or, you know, creating hurdles.

And so it's really fascinating to see women in other countries, you know, playing sport. What were they wearing? Was it does it look like it's structured in in a competitive environment? I mean, the the biggest thing for people to understand with trading cards is that this is a marketing device. And and companies back then, same as today, they don't put money into something that's not gonna sell or be collectible.

And and so it tells, you know, the companies felt that these women were worthy enough to be on a trading card, to collect to include them in their set to sell their product. That is the biggest difference than today's cards because after it shifted from bubble gum and baseball cards, and that was the insert to a stand alone. Like, most collectors, if they get into the hobby today, they only know them as a stand alone. They don't know them that they they came with product. So it gives the women value just by that alone, and it separates it from other forms of ephemera like postcards or posters or newspaper articles.

It it really adds, a layer of, like, a panache to these cards. Just incredible insight there. That's that's very interesting. I I I tend to agree as well. I think it's so it's so fun to look back and see how far we've come because this is the thing we need to understand when we're looking at today's ultra modern cards.

And we're drawn away by the comps or the public sales or whatever it may be, to really understand what this meant at the time period that we're talking about, just makes that so much so much more impressive. Yeah. Yeah. And then so this is kinda where I started with these nineties cards. And, when I was getting into the hobby, it was before eBay in particular, where I would go to sport card shows and sport card stores.

And one by one, I'd start to learn like where these were hidden. And they're kind of in three areas, but the player, the coaches, Olympics or college, or four, I guess. And so these are some of the examples of coaches cards even though Ann Myers here is is pictured as a player but became a coach and a leader in women's sports. But different sets that would sponsor them. So the Iowa Hawkeyes one was just about that was their teams.

It wasn't like a part of a broader series. Whereas the final four, was not, and same with, I think the UCLA ones were just UCLA cards. But some I think I have an example of one where it was a Sears card, and and you had to go to Sears to buy them. Right. Yeah.

So it it is actually that's yeah. Her card. It's Sears on the back. So it it just the nineties were a time when so many card companies got into the hobby and they separated them. They had to legally separate themselves from inserting something like gum.

It was a lawsuit. And I think it was upper deck, I think, that sued Topps in the eighties, I believe. And and the court said, okay. You can get into the hobby, but you can't sell it with the product. And so this caused this explosion of companies getting into the hobby in the ninety nineties, and it almost diluted in in the hobby and became you know, sadly, a lot of these cards from the nineties I'm not gonna say women's, but I'm gonna men's are kind of worthless.

And a lot of collectors would tell you that unless it's like a particular athlete and a rookie card. But that's how many cards were out there. But what it did for women was it opened the door to for these companies to say, like, okay. What can we offer that's new that someone's not doing? And this is my theory.

I I haven't read this anywhere, but, you know, this allowed these companies or encouraged them just by the competition to show some women's sports. And so you'll see, like, in the next slide or let's see let's see what's next for so these were some of the college cards that came out. The final four with Don Staley, that's another Sears card. Rebecca Lobo was featured on a lot of them, but, you know, this starts to show the graphics and the competition around the graphics. And, but, you know, they showed a lot of the high profile college players.

And, these were always us usually inserted into men's sets. And so the women would be, you know, probably the minority, and you'd have to, like, dig through it to find them, but what a treasure. Absolutely. It reminds me of today's Bowman U Chrome where there's a lot more parody, but certainly the coed part of the card sets themselves is is something that still exists today that we see. And I I completely agree with your comment or theory about competitiveness really pushing manufacturers to explore and push the envelope.

So that's super interesting. I think that's all the examples of cards that we had to show for the people watching the podcast today. But But I wanted to kinda get into we we talked a little bit about a couple players. We talked about Babe Diedrichsen. We talked about who I cannot recall the Canadian version of Babe Diedrichsen.

Bobby Rosenfeld. There we go. And then we talked about some anonymous, maybe Princeton players, some other folks. And then we finally get into the nineties with Rebecca Lobo, Don Staley, and other names that are very familiar to probably folks that are listening. Were there any players that kind of defined each era that we didn't touch on, but that maybe when we look back at those eras, they're highly collectible simply because of their notoriety as athletes?

I would say it parallels with their popularity at the time with the cards that were put out. So, I mean, there were definitely women's leagues in the fifties that I don't know if there's cards. I've never seen them, but the redheads were pretty popular during that mid century mark. It would be nice to see cards of them. Helen Stevens, who was a former Olympian from '36, she started a women's pro team in basketball.

I don't know if she actually played. I don't recall. But, you know, there were women's leagues out there. Rose Mofford, our famous governor, she almost played with the redheads, but her dad said, no. Become a governor instead.

You know, that's not become a governor, but, you know, that politics is Yeah. Basketball is probably not your best avenue for a profession. She was a pistol, though. Yeah. She was a pistol.

The reason why I asked that is because today, when we look at WNBA card sets in particular, we don't just have superstars. We also have. And these teams didn't just have one person playing on them. Like you said, team sport. Were there cards during these eras, whether it'd be very early on in the twenties or, you know, as we get up into the nineties, how did people or how do you look at collecting superstars versus players that just kind of were committing a role a role in the team?

They weren't necessarily making headlines, getting Olympic gold medals. What does that look like in the card landscape? For me, I do try to collect something of everything, but I don't have to have everything either. So and and particularly around the book, it's not gonna be the entire collection. It's it's kind of a curated example.

Otherwise, it's very it's overwhelming. So I think it really depends on the collector. Some people like complete sets. Right. Some people like just particular people.

I know someone who collects people that have certain kind of injuries. You know, it really just depends on what the person likes to collect. Right. That makes It's just it is interesting of how and we never will know this because, sadly, they've all passed away, but how the card companies, you know, decided to pick people. Right.

That I would love to be able to dig into the minds of that, but I suppose we can always just we'll just live with the fact that maybe we won't know. Yeah. Yeah. I kinda wanna pivot into the idea of the significance of this era. You know, we kinda painted the picture of what women's basketball looked like, what the cards looked like, key players, manufacturers, that landscape.

But I wanna ask you about why you think this this era of WNBA cards matter. Why do we need to learn about this today, and how does it stand out, I suppose? Why why why are we talking about this? Yeah. So I think it's the tip of a hat of the struggle struggles that these women went through to play.

It wasn't given to them. They they I don't even think they earned money of in playing because of the strict amateur rules. And that's why the women say, like, Babe had to play on, their employers' teams. The employers paid for their travel and all, but they didn't get played for games. They didn't get paid for they couldn't get paid for advertising.

I mean, in in the NCAA, this isn't too far back that, you know, same rules applied. But for these gals, you know, the economic standards were so different then. Like, you had to get married almost to even survive because women were so different, you know, underpaid for men. And so to be able to play sport on top of that, which means you have to buy equipment, you have to nice if you have a coach. Many of these didn't even have coaches.

And so it's really a tip of the hat back to their, perseverance, their love of sport, their desire to play. And then also, you know, thanks to the people that that enabled them to play and and allowed for opportunities. Both men excuse me, men and women that that fought for that. So it's an understanding that this playing sport, even though I think it's always, like, been in our our genes, our desire, our love of sport, but it's not always the opportunity hasn't been there. And so for to to see in in the medium of trading cards that a company thought it was valuable enough or or worthy to sell their product and represent their product, but also that there was there was enough popularity, you know, in the in the you know, wherever they were playing to buy their product, but also that they supported them.

So even though there was a lot of animosity about women in sport, particularly around sports that you know, the closer they got to men's behaviors or the physicality of it, anything that was in the unladylike territory, you know, kudos to them for for, you know, for persevering and and still playing because they loved it. And that gets captured on the cards. And so that's why I think these are important. It's a time capsule of history. It's different than other forms of media, like I mentioned, media or collecting.

It's just a very unique space in the ephemeral world. 100%. I think the idea, this theme of cards kind of bringing credibility to women's sports Yeah. A theme that we talk about a lot in the podcast and that something we see so so clearly here is that by having that backing, whether it be from your employer, from a company, from fans, adds that credibility and it only builds up the women in the sport itself. So I I couldn't agree more.

I guess to kinda round out this discussion before we move into our final segment, I wanted to ask you about the lessons that you've learned by by kind of collecting this era. Does that carry over into the I know you don't really dabble in modern as much, but do you think people can learn anything from collecting this era and translating those lessons to today's types of women's sports cards? I think it's mostly important to be aware of the history, you know, especially, like, if you love women's basketball, you love collecting today's cards, and you love it for, you know, again, not necessarily just financial transaction. Like, you you really dig the game. I think it is just important to know the history of where these women have come from.

It didn't just emerge. Right. It didn't it wasn't a law legal case around NAL that just put them on the map financially. There is a long history and many, many, many women whose shoulders that we stand on today that have helped make this happen So over whether you collect older cards or not, again, just, you know, collect what you love. That's the bottom line.

Go for what you love. And if these old inventions cards touch your heart, you know, you can always reach out to me and ask me questions if if you want. I've been doing this for since the early nineties and and I've learned along the way, so I'm happy to Absolutely. Well, that's a good segue, I suppose, to, our final segment today. And we're gonna be talking about Canon contribution.

And to kinda tee this up for the listeners, for each episode that we have a special guest on, I'll be asking them to pick a sort of Mount Rushmore or four cards that they think represent this era that we're talking about so that hopefully by the end of season four, we'll have a collector driven canon. It won't be set. It's it's it's up for debate, but it's something that I think will be an interesting way to kind of encapsulate all these conversations and bring them into the cards. So, Cindy, I know I gave you this task, and I I hope you had fun going through the catalog of you know, we're talking we're talking decades here of cards. So just filling it into four cards, why don't you tell us what you picked, maybe why you picked them?

And I'm so I'm so interested. It's a surprise. Yeah. So, the twenties and thirties is my favorite era, of collecting. And so what we have already seen, the the Babe Deduction card from the Wheaties box, 1935, hands down, even though it's quasi card.

The Bobby Robinson card from Dominion Chocolates, again, it's one of the few it's I think it's the only one by herself that is holding you know, showing the basketball. She's in the team's pictures, but, yeah, that's, I think, the one that really features her by herself. The Shamrock's just because it's just adorable. I just love that little the Shamrock, and and their team and showing their whole team. But also the last one would be the Edmonton's grad, which is the elusive one right now, but someday, I'll have it.

Just, you know, such great history in these athletes and the teams and the sport around them, the the support around them, not the sport, but support around them, you know, in both US and Canada. So those would be my my top four. Awesome. Well, if anybody has that Edmonton gap there, please please DM Cindy or get in contact with her. I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

I'll give you my money. Final question, and you can feel free to close it out how you'd like. But do you have any advice you would give to somebody that maybe is new to this era of collecting that wants to dive in, but but they're not sure where to start? You know, maybe they listen to this episode. They've got a good foundation now of what the landscape looked like.

Any advice to them? Well, think the hardest thing, and it still is hard for me today, is to to know like, is it real when you see it for sale? Is it or is it a reprint? And then, you know, like, what is it really worth? And for me, I have just, you know, in years of doing this, sort of just have an eye for it.

Not that I can't be fooled of the is it real? But if it looks too clean for a $5 price, like, it's too sharp in the corners, it's too crisp in the color, there's no creases, it's probably a reprint. And, sadly, with these very simple designs, it is all too easy to reprint them. So if you can go for graded, go for graded. You know, collect what you love and, again, you know, feel free to reach out to me.

The one thing that I do do though is if I see a card I've never seen before, that's in my world pretty rare, and, I always try to go after that. It it almost doesn't matter the price. But if it's a athlete particularly that I I wanna get or has some, name value, yeah, I go after it because I have been burned and missed that opportunity, and I have never seen that particular card again. And then I try not to kick myself forever, but, yeah, I've learned my lesson. So, yeah, if you're new to the hobby, click what you love, go within the price point that you can afford, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Just know I'm not a a walking price guide, but I'm happy to to share what I know. 100%. I think to to distill that down, what I heard is navigate with passion at the front and caution in the back Yeah. Yeah. It'll be good to go.

Well, Cindy, thank you so much for joining the WNBA card podcast. This was an incredible tip-off episode as we go through season four. Next episode, we'll be talking all about a league without a blueprint, and we're gonna be talking about the formation of the WNBA and how we got there. Cindy, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being on here.

And if you guys don't follow Cindy at giant legends on Instagram, you're missing out. Go follow her. Thank you. Thank you so much.