The following question was sent to us by long-time friend -Joe Marasco. For those of you who do not know Joe, he is one of the foremost experts on hockey bobbing head dolls.
Question: "Considering all the interesting figurines that you have shown on your website over the years and the new Blog site, I would like to 
use this forum to ask a few questions of your readers. I have an interesting paper Mache coin bank, similar to the Quinco style banks with a rubber stopper, which I would like to know more information about. I am not a follower of college football but I would like to know which college or university that this bank represents. You can see from the pictures that it has "UW.S" on the head and obviously it is a BEE or a WASP. It is holding a football so that should narrow it down. I was thinking University of Wyoming or Wisconsin. The BEE or WASP is part of the answer but I don't know about college mascots or nicknames. Any suggestions ?? Also, anyone know its worth or year it was made? Thanks, Joe Marasco Rochester N.Y (hknodder@frontiernet.net) "
Answer: I think we came up with the school. We believe it is the mascot of the University of Wisconsin- Superior. Their knick-name is the Yellowjackets and the initials fit. Our guess is that this bank is from the late 60's/early 70's. We have seen like banks of Alabama and Arkansas. The value is hard to determine. With mascot banks, the bigger the football program- the more interest and value it will have. It is certainly a great looking piece.
By the way, if you ever need to find out college nick-names and mascots, try this site out: http://www.smargon.net/nicknames/
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Hartland Statues - "What could have been?"
I have been involved in this hobby for over 20 years. Like many of my fellow collectors, I started out with baseball cards. Early in my collecting life, I went to a local Baseball Card Shop (remember those?) and what I saw changed my focus almost immediately. Behind the counter on a small shelf stood original Hartland Statues of both Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn. I had a flashback to my youth. I had never owned any of the Hartlands, but had always been fascinated by the ones owned by my childhood friend. He must have had 6 or 7 displayed on his dresser top. Seeing them again at this store, brought back many childhood memories. I asked the owner of the store how much they were. When he said $80 each, he might as well have said $1,000 each. At 30 years old with a young family to support, this was a lot of money. I couldn't sleep that night as I kept thinking about those statues. I went back the next day and purchased them both. Of course, I told my wife that I spent $5 each on them (Come on guys- admit it- I'm not the only one who's done this). That set off a quest to find out more about them and was the catalyst to my figural addiction.
I would later find out that there were 18 baseball players produced by Hartland Plastics in the late 60's/early 70's. They also produced a series of football player statues and an extensive line of television cowboy statues. The 18 baseball players are Babe Ruth, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio, Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks, Stan Musial, Don Drysdale, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Harmon Killebrew, Rocky Colavito and Dick Groat. Amazingly, of the 17 present day players they made, 14 are now members of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
The football statues included only two actual players- Johnny Unitas and Jon Arnett. There were two generic statues made of each of the then 14 NFL teams. One is a running back and the other is a lineman.
Well, my quest was on and within a few years I completed by baseball set. I was both and happy and sad that my collection was complete. I simply needed more and always wondered what could have been had this series lasted a few more years. For those of you who don't know, Hartland was bought by Revlon in the early 60's, and they immediately scraped the toy line to concentrate on making plastic cosmetic cases. They had planned on making two more baseball players and had gotten permission to make a Casey Stengel (then manager of the N.Y. Mets) and of Jim Gentile the hard hitting slugger of the Baltimore Orioles. As a matter of fact, a prototype statue of Casey Stengel still exists (see photo) and was last owned by former Hartland V.P , the late Frank Fulop.
So this leads me to the title of this article- "What could have been?". I always wondered why they didn't sculpt other ballplayers from that time. Can you imagine Frank Robinson or Vada Pinson statues from the Cincinnati Reds? Or how about Brooks Robinson posed in his fielding stance? My list was endless and included Al Kaline, Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Billy Williams, Richie Ashburn, Willie McCovey, Roberto Clemente and so many more. If the company had lasted until the late 60's it could have included Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Tony Oliva, Richie Allen and your imagination could just keep going.
The same sized list could be made for their football series. And isn't it interesting that there are AFL team logos on their football statue boxes. One can assume, that they had planned a line of AFL team statues too.
Sure, others have tried to revive the Hartland name and carry on their work- but the workmanship just doesn't seem to match the artistry of almost 50 years ago. In my mind, the original Hartland statues are the finest figural pieces in the hobby. Isn't it a shame that they just didn't last longer? We can all ask ourselves - "What could have been?".