Okay, so perhaps this isn’t really a collectors’ card, but I just don’t know what else to call it. Any suggestions?

The front of this little collectible features two youngsters deeply engrossed in their reading. We can make out a couple volumes, The Mystery of Cabin Island and The Secret in the Old Attic. Above, a huge shelf of books (amazingly without support!) includes some Nancy Drew tweeds and PCs and some very odd looking Hardy Boys PCs.

The back is chock full of the kind of Syndicate-specific errors typical to the 1970s and 80s. The date is provided as 1920, which works if you’re going by decade, I guess. The first paragraph states that the juvenile readers market was growing explosively in the ‘20s, but what about Tom Swift, the Bobbseys, and the torrent of other young adult literature and pulp in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

What follows is the usual spiel about Nancy Drew, her chums (“George [sic] and Bess and her lovestruck college admirer Ned Nickerson”), and her excellent sale quality. The same information is strangely lacking for the Hardy Boys…

The last paragraph is devoted to the enigmatic Carolyn Keene; apparently Harriet Adams, Andy Svenson, and “four ghostwriters” wrote all the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, and Nancy Drew books!

But don’t let my sarcasm get to you; if you’re a die-hard ND fan, a completionist, or just wait a little bit of Nancy Drew history, this item is for you…if you can find one!

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