I certainly do not have Dr. Anthony Fauci’s notoriety and have never been asked to throw the first pitch in a game. However, there is an Ed Mendlowitz Topps trading card and I will send you one for free.
The news Sunday night was that over 50,000 Dr. Fauci cards were sold in six hours for $9.95. When I heard about it, I checked on eBay and the card was being offered for up to $500.00. I collect trading cards and in particular cards with commercial topics, and have quite a few of these. For $9.95 (postage included) I would have bought a Dr. Fauci card if I had the chance. I did buy an Ichiro Suzuki card when Topps offered it when he retired, but somehow they removed me from their “special” email notification list.
Because of my interest in trading cards, I started an accountants’ series of Topps cards in 2010, issuing a new card that was distributed at each Withum Partners’ Network CPE program. It got up to 20 cards, plus me, making the series 21 cards. I stopped when Topps ended printing customized cards with its logo. I felt that without the Topps name, the cards would not be as special.
Publishing the cards became a fascination with me delving into accounting history and looking for some well-known people that were accountants along with the obvious choices. It also led to my meeting the top two accounting historians in America – Dale Flesher and Gary Previts. It also helped me be awarded the 2019 Excellence in Accounting Education Award by the American Accounting Association’s Accounting History Division. Besides using the cards in my teaching, I distributed a few thousand to teachers and professors to share a little bit about the exciting history of accounting with their students.
Accounting records were the start of human history since the first writing were of accounting transactions. Around 3450 B.C. the Sumerians developed cuneiform writing to keep track of the work done by the people working in the fields for the land owners. Accounting is mentioned in the Bible, in Exodus and in Matthew and Mark. The Oscar awards used a certified public accounting firm to count the ballots in 1933 to add credibility to the process. Some of my cards show Luca Pacioli, the father of accounting (who was also the teacher of Leonardo), Roderigo Sanchez, the accountant hired by Queen Isabella to accompany Columbus on his first voyage, Christine Ross, the first woman CPA and John W. Cromwell, Jr., the first Black CPA, Confucius who started his career as an accountant, and an interesting bunch of others.
Today, I am offering to send you a FREE Ed Mendlowitz and Luca Pacioli Topps card (shown above) and four others. If you are African-American and request the John Cromwell card, a woman and request the Christine Ross card, or Chinese and request the Confucius card, I will include those with what I send you. Otherwise, I will pick the extras. To get the cards, send me a regular size self-addressed envelope with 70¢ postage and I’ll send you a half dozen cards. Mail the envelope to Ed Mendlowitz, P.O. Box 6664, East Brunswick, NJ 08816. Do not mail it to my office. When I get your envelope, I will put the cards in it and mail it right back and will do this at the post office. I must have the addressed stamped envelope or cannot send you the cards.
Do not be a wise guy or gal and ask for a Fauci card. Also, I could tell you right away that there is no market for the Ed Mendlowitz cards, so fuhgeddaboud it.
I’ve been blogging twice a week for 8 1/2 years and seem to have covered a lot of topics that I like and have a few blogs on the cards and the history of accounting. Email me at [email protected] and I’ll email reprints along with photos of all of the cards.
By the way, the owner of Topps is Michael Eisner the former Chairman/CEO of Disney. No, I do not have a card for him. He wasn’t an accountant.
If you have any business or financial issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].
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