Sixty-year-old juniors

Been a while, so I'll just jump right in with some unusual vintage I happened across a few weeks ago.

It's a vintage Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters card! This card, of a player by the name of Irvin Scott, is from a set released in 1952 that's often referred to as "Blue Tint" because (I assume) of the blue shading in the cards. The maker of these cards is apparently something of a mystery, although if this website is to be believed, they were produced by a Canadian candy manufacturer called Bedard & Donaldson. 

As you can see, they're fairly no-frill cards. A close-cropped head shot on the front and then some bare bones biographical info on the back. They're also smaller than a contemporary card, but bigger than a tobacco card. About the size, I'd guess, of a 1952 Parkie. 

It's a 182-card set and it includes several famous names, including Henri Richard, Al Arbour and Don Cherry. Alas, Irvin here isn't among them. All I can find on him is that he played one season with the Biltmores (who were a farm team for the New York Rangers back then). 

The seller who had this card list also had two others from the seat that were in pretty decent shape and selling collectively for less than the price of a blaster: 

Here's card #16 in the set: Archie Burton of the still-in-existence Windsor Spitfires. I love that you get decent look at the old jerseys. Archie never made the NHL, either, but he did play a couple of seasons with the Clinton Comets of the now-defunct Eastern Hockey League. He was apparently from Sudbury and quit hockey after he was traded because he had married a local girl and started a family. That's according to this story in the local paper in Utica, N.Y., which ran a story on the Comets a few years ago. 

And this is #36: Leon Michelin of the Trois-Rivieres Reds of the Quebec junior league, which, like the Biltmores, are no longer around today. Can't find much on Michelin, either, although this might be the best card of the bunch. It's fascinating to see some of the old gear and the brick background of whatever hockey rink Michelin was in at the time. 

These cards are more than 60 years old, which makes them the oldest cards in my collection. I'd love to pick up more of these someday, although glancing around eBay, it seems like most sellers want a king's ransom for them. So it may be a while before I do.