1900-1938 – SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee

11 for 11: Hubbell’s amazing feat on cardboard

To date there have been 11 cards (ignoring variants) honoring Carl Hubbell’s 1934 All-Star Game performance in which he struck out these five immortals in succession.

The earliest card to focus on his famous fanning feat came in 1938, via Wheaties Series 10. Interestingly, Hubbell’s account focuses exclusively on his first inning strikeout victims (Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx) and makes no mention of the second inning strikeouts that followed.

A decade later, Hubbell’s Midsummer Classic heroics were featured in the 1948 Swell “Sport Thrills” set. Here his strikeouts of Al Simmons and Joe Cronin are reflected in the card’s “Five Strikeouts!” caption.

Though no cards in the 1950s paid tribute to the achievement, Nu-Cards doubled down with cards on both its 1960 “Baseball Hi-Lites” and 1961 “Baseball Scoops” checklists. The 1960 card appears to use the same photograph as “Sport Thrills.”

Meanwhile, the 1961 image could almost be confused for a lunar landscape.

In 1972, legendary baseball card artist Bob Laughlin included Hubbell in his “Great Feats of Baseball” series, which can be found with either blue or red borders.

Just two years later, Laughlin featured Hubbell once again, this time in a set of cards specifically focused on the All-Star Game. An early print run for the set erroneously had 14 as King Carl’s uniform number.

For whatever reason, Laughlin did not include Hubbell in either his 1973 or 1980 “Famous Feats” sets. However, King Carl was back in 1981 in a brand new All-Star Game set occupying the backs of 1980 Fleer Baseball Stickers. Offering a bit of detail many collectors may overlook, Laughlin not only illustrates Hubbell’s five victims but also the manner of each strikeout (i.e., Ruth looking and the other players swinging).

The Meal Ticket’s mastery was next included in the final series of a 1977-84 Renata Galasso release alternately known as “Glossy Greats” and “Decade Greats.” This series, released in 1984, focused exclusively on great moments.

Hubbell’s heroics would again go on hiatus for a decade, returning in the 1994 installment of the Conlon Collection. In truth, the card was one of 39 different cards commemorating the 1934 All-Star Game, so it’s status as a highlights card can certainly be debated.

King Carl’s card in that same year’s Upper Deck Baseball: The American Epic release has similarly ambiguous status as the card front highlights the year but not the feat.

Then, nearly 40 years went by without a single card paying tribute to the Hubbell’s strikeout magic. Thankfully, artist Eric Kittelberger of Triple Play Design ended the drought this past years with this absolute masterpiece from his “Nicknames & Numbers” series, even if purists might like to see his first K reversed.

There is something fitting about number 11 having 11 cards commemorating his most famous feat, but I definitely won’t complain if more are added. Should Topps ever decide to join the party, it’s “Turn Back the Clock” series offers a natural vehicle.

EXTRA FOR EXPERTS

The earliest cardboard mention of Hubbell’s feat came in the 1935 Diamond Matchbook set where the five strikeouts are included as part of Hubbell’s bio.

Heading into the 1934 Midsummer Classic, Hubbell had only seven times in his career struck out three batters in an inning, making his All-Star Game performance all the more unlikely, especially considering he did it twice that day!
It wasn’t quite “Carl Hubbell Baseball Card” enough to make my list, but Hubbell’s accomplishment was one of several to make the 1988 Score insert set.

Ditto in 1989!

Hubbell is mentioned (and even quoted) on a 1986 Donruss Highlights card honoring fellow screwballer Fernando Valenzuela for matching his famous feat.

1935 Goudey: Over the border line

Introduction

I enjoy picking apart unexplained details of vintage sets to see where that journey leads. This article puts 1935’s Big League Gum baseball set, often shortened to “1935 Goudey,” under a microscope with similar aims. It looks at what’s in the set, obsesses over missing details, and considers how it fits into an important decade for baseball and our hobby.

1935 Goudey Big League Gum (Ruth at upper-left)

This set exists thanks to work by two seminal companies from Boston, Goudey Gum and National Chicle. The former ran parallel US and Canadian operations that reflected its founder’s Nova Scotia heritage. Chicle itself emerged from 1933’s trading cards explosion and lasted just long enough to give Goudey real competition. Much of what that era faced echoes in today’s hobby, including a gambling mindset among potential buyers and baseball’s push to raise fan interest during hard financial times.

Goudey Gum’s Hollywood beginnings

Our 1920s produced, for the most part, small trading cards sets with low print quality. “Bubblegum cards” didn’t exist yet because our Federal Trade Commission blocked marketing gimmicks like packing cards with candy as anti-competitive (and thus illegal). Many lawmakers believed that selling penny gum with unknown contents would start kids down the road to compulsive gambling and objected to its use, with success, on moral grounds.

Sports like baseball also shut down for several months at a time and those lengthy off-seasons made it challenging to sell product tie-ins on a consistent basis. That led Goudey to Hollywood as something more predictable. Their first set appears to be western movie postcards linked to the popular brand Oh Boy Gum.

1929 Oh Boy Gum movie cards (cataloged E282)

This made their first “sports card” a candid of western movie star Tom Mix working out with his friend (and boxing champ) Jack Dempsey. The text variation that lacks Goudey’s name implies they integrated an existing Mix/Dempsey card into this larger Oh Boy Gum set.

Goudey’s next set told “the story of chewing gum” and trumpeted their production process during 1930 sponsorship of a kid’s radio show, Big Brother’s Radio Rascals.

1930 Goudey “Story of Chewing Gum” (uncataloged)

I bet kids obtained Rainbow cards from local stores or by mail-in request to its home station, WEEI. Every Goudey marketing effort from this era pushed hard against the perception that penny gum meant “low quality.”

In January 1933, a majority decision in R.F. Keppel Brothers vs. FTC overturned the ban that applied to bubblegum cards as marketing gimmicks and freed companies to sell them. Goudey was ready for that change of fortune and launched Indian Gum in February, followed by the debut of Big League Gum cards around Opening Day.

The first Big League Gum set sold so well during 1933 that Jason Schwartz argues Goudey may have squeezed a multi-year plan into one season. I think they also tried to use Ruth’s stardom as a solution to the “off-season problem” by adding him to the multi-subject Sport Kings Gum in December. Given its comparative scarcity today, even The Babe failed to keep kids buying baseball during wintertime.

1933 Goudey Sport Kings Gum #2, Babe Ruth

In the end, Goudey made six different Babe Ruth cards in 1933 alone! Four in Big League Gum, one in Sport Kings Gum, and another from this wrapper mail-in.

Goudey ex-treasurer, Harold DeLong, offered some candy store competition in 1933 with a set made by his eponymous gum company. Lou Gehrig stands out as its best player (full checklist and gallery).

The set’s back text shared playing tips by Austen Lake, a Boston sportswriter, who also wrote bios for National Chicle’s Diamond Stars Gum cards. SABR profiled DeLong and said more about Lake himself in 2019.

DeLong’s 1933 Play Ball Gum set, not to be confused with Gum, Inc.’s 1939-41 sets, stopped at one series of 24 players. We might attribute its modern scarcity to one of baseball’s first agents, Christy Walsh, and the need to pay his clients or face legal trouble. See SABR’s Death and Taxes and Baseball Card Litigation series for several tales of legal wrangling over player images. (Jimmie Foxx’s 1941 case happened to go up against Harold DeLong’s next company, who produced the Double Play set.)

Sports promoter Christy Walsh (center) negotiated endorsements for Gehrig (left), Ruth (right), and several other MLB stars around this time. I suspect he turned 1933’s card boom into higher endorsement fees for each player in 1934, forcing companies to choose who they could afford.

New Yorker writer Louis Menand cited Lou’s new wife Eleanor as working with Walsh to create a pitchman persona for her husband. Goudey bet on Lou alone for 1934, linking this Big League Gum card set and their Knot Hole League customer loyalty club to his smiling mug. Walsh, always the promoter, even worked his own name onto each card with a “by arrangement with Christy Walsh” byline.

Sometime in 1933, a group of Goudey executives led by Alvin Livingstone left the company to start crosstown rival National Chicle. I think much of its creative talent followed them, based on how good their Art Deco Diamond Stars Gum (left) and die-cut Batter-Up Gum (right) sets looked in 1934.

Whether you blame competition or changing consumer tastes, later court filings show Goudey’s baseball card business suffered after 1933, dropping by 50% in 1934 and another 50% the year after, even as gum itself continued to sell well.

Goudey sales data, via SCD editor Bob Lemke

Goudey’s dropping card revenue and the exit of key staff to competitors reflects America’s wider business landscape for fans and collectors.

Depression impacts on Goudey and baseball

The mid-1930s proved a tough time for our pastime itself. America’s depression squeezed every entertainment dollar and attendance slacked to under 5,000 per game by 1933. Team owners threw new stuff at the wall each year to see what stuck and we can thank this era for, among other things…

1933: First All-Star Game (“Game of the Century” at the World’s Fair in Chicago)
1936-39: Baseball’s first Hall of Fame class & opening of Cooperstown museum
1937: Outfield ivy at Wrigley Field, a literal interpretation of sticking things to walls

1935 wrappers evoke Babe Ruth, now in his final season, and I suspect they added a date because 1934 Big League Gum’s entire first series reused images from 1933 and left a poor taste in buyer’s mouths. (“This time it’s different,” implied Goudey, before reusing many player pictures once again.)

This Ruth batting pose seems based on several lookalikes published in that decade, including an earlier Sanella Margarine card.

1932 Sanella Margarine, one of many cards with this swinging pose

Goudey’s set of 36 cards and three loose ends

1935 Big League Gum put four players on each card and its selection bridged eras, from Babe Ruth to rookie phenom Cy Blanton, who led the NL in shutouts and garnered his own 2021 SABR card profile.

Collectors used the literal flip side to build six-card puzzles for individual stars like Mickey Cochrane…

…and twelve cards each for three team photos (Tigers, Indians, Senators).

Big League Gum’s 36 arrangements of four players each should equal 144, except they printed six twice (Bottomley, Brandt, Cochrane, Comorosky, Kamm, and Mancuso), for 138 different faces.

1935 Goudey Big League Gum’s two Mickey Cochrane fronts

Other hobby writers already addressed some of 1935’s puzzles and peccadilloes. I know of three more loose ends that might connect with a single thread.

First loose end: Player selection left out many big names. Even if you accept choosing between Ruth or Gehrig as your biggest star, where’s Yankees Ace Lefty Gomez? He appears on a Goudey 1935 photo premium, yet none of their Big League Gum cards.

1935 Goudey Big League Gum premium (R309-2)

Many big names went missing, like New York ace Carl Hubbell and St. Louis stars Joe Medwick, Ripper Collins, and Daffy Dean. Future HOFers Gabby Hartnett and Billy Herman led the Cubs to an NL pennant in 1935, so were also missed by Chicago fans.

At least one prominent 1935 rookie (Cy Blanton) appeared in Big League Gum, so I mocked up a card for three that didn’t, Phil Cavarretta, Rip Radcliff, and Lew Riggs. Frenchy Bordagaray gets in on the strength of his facial hair alone. Goudey’s many omissions loom large over such a small set. And speaking of things left out…

Second loose end: Goudey’s name and Big League Gum appear nowhere on the card itself. This represents a big change to their earlier, text-heavy sets. Compare 1934 bios (left) to 1935 puzzle pieces (right).

You might already know Goudey licensed portions of 1933 and 1934 Big League Gum sets to their Quebec partner, World Wide Gum, for Canadian printing and distribution. Each of those cards proclaimed its Montreal origins, just as American sets came from Boston. (I wrote more about these cross-border sets in 2019.)

1934 Big League Gum card backs, Canada (left) and USA (right)

So why leave out all this info for 1935 cards? I think the reason Goudey omitted it will sound outlandish, yet serves their goal of making money during a tough financial era. They wanted to hide the set’s country of origin and sell to fans on each side of our northern border without paying import costs.

1934-36 National Chicle Batter-Up Gum (blank back)

If this seems like a reach, remember that National Chicle published two sets in 1934 and one of them, Batter-Up Gum, also lacked attribution. Did Goudey follow their competition’s lead selling these cards in multiple countries?

Excerpt from The Story of the Great Lakes in 8 Maps

American Prohibition, an era rife with border smuggling, ended in late 1933 and some no doubt continued moving other goods by land, boat, or air across our Great Lakes. MLB towns Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland all offer land or waterway routes to Canada, as do International League baseball cities Toronto and Buffalo. Obscuring a set’s origin would enable Goudey or National Chicle to print cards wherever proved cheapest and evade import costs at their eventual point of sale. (Canada’s higher dependence on exports could also be why this made sense.)

Big League Gum wrappers, 1934 Goudey (left) and
undated World Wide Gum (right)

While there are no World Wide Gum wrappers dated as 1935, this design echoes Goudey’s 1934 look without specifying a year, so could be from later. Did they wrap them around 1935 Big League Gum cards up north?

1936 Big League Gum (cataloged R322) also omits company name and country of origin, so perhaps Goudey succeeded in cutting costs and decided to keep their scheme running for another year.

To add more spice to our soup, recall that O-Pee-Chee released their debut Canadian baseball set in spring 1937, just as National Chicle declared bankruptcy.

1937 O-Pee-Chee baseball (cataloged V300)

These cards use die-cut folds along each player profile, making them close cousins to 1934-36 Batter-Up Gum. Perhaps OPC printed it first for National Chicle and then sold the set themselves when their American partner folded.

Believing that cross-border smuggling could be done differs from proving it happened. Each company would work to hide contemporary evidence of their trickiness, let alone leave a trail to follow 90 years later. These card and wrapper designs allow for intriguing monkey business, if Goudey and National Chicle wanted to reduce costs with clandestine assistance from Canadian partners.

Would you believe another mystery remains for 1935 Big League Gum?

Third loose end: These six cards, and these six alone, come with blue borders, while the remaining 30 feature red borders.

1935 Goudey Big League Gum blue border cards (uncut panel)

Advanced collectors might remember Goudey printed a second baseball-related set in 1935, tied to their Knot Hole League collector club you saw earlier. Candy stores who stocked Big League Gum boxes received a stack of these flip game cards featuring 1934’s World Series opponents (St. Louis & Detroit) with instructions to share them with buyers of Big League Gum. Fronts show game rules below a scoreboard and backs introduced the game situations also seen on black-and-white 1936 cards.

1935 Goudey Knot Hole League (front and back)

Despite its promised “series of 100,” this set stopped at #24, equal to one 4×6 print sheet of cards. Having two groups of 1935 cards with a shared border color recalls a situation two years earlier, as one series of Indian Gum used blue name banners about when Goudey’s Boston facility also produced the first sheet of their pirate-themed Sea Raider Gum.

Hobby legend says these series shared ink across two sheets. (See PSA’s set profile for details.) If Goudey printed this way again in 1935, then the existence of blue-bordered Knot Hole League could explain how six Big League Gum cards ended up the same way: it was more efficient to share colors across similar work.

If that scenario fails to convince you, how about printing cards with regional appeal? Master set collectors will know those six blue fronts come with three back puzzle variations, all of future Hall of Fame players from Great Lakes cities Chicago and Detroit. (As before, complete player puzzles require six fronts and I show uncut versions for image clarity.)

Puzzle 2, Chuck Klein, 1933 NL triple crown winner who joined the Cubs in 1934.

Puzzle 4, Mickey “Black Mike” Cochrane, traded to Detroit after 1933.

Puzzle 7, Al “Bucketfoot” Simmons, sold to the White Sox after 1932.

Perhaps Goudey produced blue Big League Gum cards with Chicago and Detroit in mind, knowing these three stars held extra appeal. Specific border color would make it easy to target their distribution.

A third scenario for these borders recalls that Goudey printed 30 different red border cards with four players each, 120 total, half the size of 1933 Big League Gum. An equal number of blue cards, another 120, would give us 240 players. If they intended to make an equal quantity of each, this implies a halt to production soon after changing ink colors.

That gives us three scenarios for 1935 Big League Gum blue borders, based on what we see today.

Efficient printing alongside Knot Hole League
Great Lakes “subset” of Chicago and Detroit star puzzles
Printing stopped before Goudey reached their planned 30 blue borders

That last option makes the most sense in retrospect. Goudey shortened sets from other years when cards stopped selling and 1935’s falling baseball revenue shows that happening.

This scuttling of additional series also answers our question about missing players, since a full complement of 30 blue border cards would add many more names to its checklist. Multiple scenarios might work together. For example, an attempt to promote stars in Chicago and Detroit could fail to meet Goudey sales expectations, so they stopped spending money on that year’s set.

Summary of what we covered

Just a few years after kids could start buying cards and gum together, these intriguing baseball sets omitted basic info about their origins during an era when people with flexible morals could profit from hiding that kind of information. One of them, 1935 Big League Gum, took the mystery further with a subset of blue borders in search of explanation. I proposed a handful of explanations, some worthy of being in a police report for smuggling to either side of America’s northern border.

Baseball sets from our past can seem prosaic now, as if printed in similar circumstances to today’s more predictable hobby. I think Goudey and National Chicle, like many Great Depression businesses, stood willing to try almost anything to stay afloat, even dodging government regulations when it helped them keep money coming in. Perhaps 1930s card creators were their company’s edgy marketers who ran hot and fizzled out fast. However things worked behind the scenes, they left intriguing puzzles to work out a century later.

Collecting King Carl

Though a die-hard Dodger fan, I’ve always had a fondness for two lifelong Giants, Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell. How much fondness? At the risk of losing favor with the Great Dodger in the Sky, let’s just say I have more cards of each than I do Dodger legends like Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, and Jackie Robinson!

One flip through my “old cards” binder is enough to reveal that despite my allegiance to all things Dodger Blue, I’ve been sleeving with the enemy.

As I added my latest Hubbell to the collection, a 1941 Double Play in remarkably nice shape, I stopped to think about why it is I had such a connection to the Giants ace.

I think the allure goes way back to when nearly all of my knowledge of baseball history came from (and this will make me sound old!) books and radio.

I imagine Vin Scully mentioned Carl Hubbell once or twice in the games I’d listen to before bed starting around 1979, perhaps in conjunction with our own screwballer, Bobby Castillo, and I have no doubt King Carl came up even more as Fernando rose to prominence.

As for books, I gravitated more toward cartoon-illustrated tomes with titles like “Baseball’s Zaniest Plays” (and still do!) than biography or serious analysis, a consequence being that I came to prize the 7-for-7 game or double no-hitter even more than the 500 home run hitter or 300 game winner. No surprise then that striking out five of the greatest hitters in baseball history–in a row!–would command my attention.

Of course, as is true with much in my life, there was a baseball card angle. At a card show around 1980, perhaps my very first, I rummaged through the “quarter box” and left with a 1961 Nu-Cards Baseball Scoops card immortalizing the Meal Ticket’s midsummer heroics.

Of course I had no idea it was from 1961. To ten-year-old me this card—bargain price be damned— had to be from 1934, or maybe 1935 at the very latest, which made this card my very first really old card of an all-time great. (In truth, that status still would have held had I known the card’s correct year.)

A few years later I was fortunate enough to receive a through the mail return from the Meal Ticket himself, though the card, like many from my early collecting days, did not survive the decades.

Fast forward nearly 40 years and my Hubbell collection included the glorious plastic sheet shown earlier, a 1935 Diamond Stars, and several pages of post-career cardboard: Fleer Baseball Greats, TCMA, Renata Galasso, Dick Perez, Conlon, etc.

There were definitely other cards I wanted, but I had two things working against me. First off, my “best of” binder page looked so magnificent, I didn’t really want to tinker. Second, vintage Carl Hubbell cards weren’t exactly free. Fortunately, each of these problems had a solution.

If the collection grew a bit, I could borrow a Cigar Box display from one of my Dodger collections, however traitorous that sounds. As for cash, I came to the conclusion that supporting an Ott and Hubbell collection took me a bit outside my means and that selling some Ott cards would be an excellent way to generate some Hubbell money.

It was definitely painful to part with any beloved card of Master Melvin, but I knew I’d made the right decision when I was able to add this absolute dream card to my collection. Plus, Ott played for the Giants, so there’s that. 😃

Another big “hit” was Hubbell’s 1934 Goudey card, notably the year of his famous strikeout feat. (The “Sports Kings” card was likely also released in 1934, though the multi-sport Goudey set is nearly always referred to as a 1933 issue.)

I also decided I was long overdue in picking up some of the Meal Ticket’s early 1970s Laughlin cards.

The result is this wonderful Hubbell display, which sits atop my mantel.

Keen eyes might notice I’ve subbed in this homemade “Heavy J Studios” version of Hubbell’s Sport Kings card while the real one anchors a separate wall display.

I’ve also applied similar treatment (plus cut autograph—thanks, Sean!) to my 1984 Donruss Champions series featuring the glorious artwork of Dick Perez.

To an extent I suppose I’m now where I was almost a year ago, display full and wallet empty. The only difference is now I have exactly the Hubbell collection I’d always dreamed of. Still, I’ll highlight the cards most likely to sneak into my collection someday if the price or timing is just right.

STANDARD-ISH SIZE

In honor of Hubbell’s strikeout record, I’ll start with this group of five cards, any of which would bump the 2019 Panini Diamond Kings card out of my display.

1933 Goudey #234

I’m a sucker for 1933 Goudey, so this is an obvious want. However, it’s not quite a need. The image is the same as Hubbell’s 1934 Goudey card, and I already have both that and Hubbell’s other 1933 Goudey. Shoot, though. I do love red backgrounds.

1934 Batter Up

This card is attractive to me in a couple ways. The pose is tremendous, so there’s that. But there’s also the fact that I don’t have a single Batter Up card in my collection.

1941 Goudey (Blue)

There is so little to love about this set, but I do think the Hubbell is among its least terrible cards. Yet another set I have no cards of in my collection.

1943 M.P. & Company

Literally the exact same comment as above.

1974 Laughlin All-Star Game

I absolutely LOVE Laughlin cards, having grown up on the Fleer sticker backs of the early 1980s. I know a lot of collectors my age would go back to card shows of that era and buy up Mantle cards. Me, I’d scoop up all the 1970s Laughlin sets for two to three dollars a pop!

OVERSIZED

As much as I enjoy the larger pieces, they’re a challenge to display with my other cards. Still, I’m forced to at least call out two cards so spectacular I’d find a spot for them somehow.

1937 and 1938 Wheaties

* * * * *

How about you? What are your favorite cards of the Meal Ticket? Do your player collections include enemies from the rival team? Let me know in the comments, and happy collecting!

A FEW LESSONS

When “collecting them all” is a practical impossibility, building a player collection of personal favorites, perhaps restricted or otherwise influenced by display parameters, is a great way to go.
If displaying is an end goal, you might be surprised how much customs, modern, and art cards can enhance the overall look and obviously save a ton of cash.
Selling or trading all but a couple favorites of a player you collect is a great way to build up your collection of someone else. Not easy but no regrets!

RANDOM CARL HUBBELL TRIVIA

Hubbell’s feat of five consecutive All-Star Game strikeouts was matched in 1986 by fellow screwballer Fernando Valenzuela. However, the batters retired by Fernando (Mattingly, Ripken, Barfield, Whitaker, Higuera) don’t read quite the same as Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons, Cronin).
Hall of Fame teammates Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell died exactly 3o years apart (November 21, 1958, and November 21, 1988) from injuries suffered in automobile accidents.
Born in Carthage, Missouri, King Carl won 18 games in 1929 but was outdone by namesake and fellow Show Me State native Edwin Hubble (Marshfield, MO) whose discovery of Hubble’s Law had profound implications for our understanding of the universe.

Polar Plunge: The Christopher Torres Interview

Author’s Note: Over the last couple years I’ve quietly marveled as fellow collector Christopher Torres worked his way ever closer toward a remarkable Hobby achievement: a complete set of T206 Polar Bear backs. In this interview with SABR Baseball Cards, Chris shares his experiences with our readers.

SABR Baseball Cards: Chris, many of our readers may know you from your excellent real-time documentation of the Topps Project 2020 set. Were you also collecting tobacco cards at that time, or is this a more recent foray for you?

Chris: First off, thank you for your kind words on my Project 2020 work. What a tremendous time that was for us as a country but also for us in the baseball card community. I personal can’t believe we are about to hit three years since I released my first ever P2020 video and to this day I am forever thankful for everyone who followed and watched my Project 2020 series. I credit a lot of my professional success these days to my trial and error with recording those earlier videos.

Now at the time Project 2020 started, I was a collector of tobacco cards but on a very minor scale with no real purpose. I picked up my very first T206 cards at the 2019 National in Chicago as a way to commemorate my first ever trip to the National. I ended up with raw Solly Hofman and an SGC A Frank Chance along with a few T212 Obak Seattle cards. Little did I know then that the $60 Chance purchase would eventually send me off on a three year plus collecting journey for the entire Polar Bear back run set.

SABR Baseball Cards: What drew you to collecting Polar Bear backs in particular? Were there any other finalists in mind as you settled on Polar Bear?

Chris: As I picked up more and more T206 cards through 2020 and the first part of 2021, I found myself at a true crossroads in the set. I knew financially speaking putting together all 520 cards was going to be tough and I also wondered if I could truly appreciate 520 different cards. At times I found myself buying cards just because and never truly enjoying them.

Through that trial and error, the one card back that I truly appreciated was the Polar Bear back. Not only is blue one of my favorite colors (Go UTEP Miners!), the card back was so much more visually appealing than the others. The second part that really struck me was the confidence of their slogan, “Is Now, Always Has Been, Always Will Be” the best scrap tobacco.

Backs of some of Chris’ favorites. Keep reading to see fronts!

About two years after I picked up my first T206 card I sold off every single non-Polar Bear card, minus a few Southern Leaguer Old Mills, and decided to start over. By January 2, 2022, I was at 77 Polar Bears, which was just about 31% of the set’s 250 cards.

SABR Baseball Cards: Let’s dig in to that number a bit more. The Polar Bear subset has 250 different cards, which puts it at about half the cards of the full Monster. Is there anything that distinguishes these 250 cards? For example, do they represent just one of the three years 1909-1911, or are only certain teams represented?

Chris: The print years are the same as the broader T206 set (i.e., 1909-1911), but one very key property of the Polar Bear set is the inclusion of Ray Demmitt and Bill O’Hara in St Louis uniforms. (Editor’s Note: These St. Louis variations are two of the toughest cards in the entire Monster, trailing only the “Big Four” in scarcity.) These variations only occur in Polar Bear, as no other brands chose to update their teams following their trades.

I also personally put Simon Nichols on the same pedestal as Demmitt and O’Hara being that he retired in 1910 and was potentially replaced on the print sheet by Demmitt or O’Hara. However, the secondary market currently says otherwise.

SABR Baseball Cards: Which top-shelf Hall of Famers can be found with Polar Bear backs? For example, are all four Ty Cobb cards in the subset?

Chris: Polar Bear is unique as it only includes 32 Hall of Famers compared to the 74 in the entire 520 card set. In Polar Bear, Ty Cobb only has the “Red Portrait” and “Bat off Shoulder” variations. Walter Johnson has just the “Glove at Chest” variation, no portrait. Same with Christy Mathewson, no portrait in Polar Bear but the “Dark Cap” variation.

This is what makes Polar Bear unique in my mind. You are still getting a taste of all of the Hall of Famers but you aren’t having to buy as many different poses for a complete set. Only Cobb, Hughie Jennings, John McGraw, Joe Tinker and Vic Willis have two Polar Bear poses, and no Hall of Famer has three.

SABR Baseball Cards: What can you tell us about the Polar Bear tobacco brand itself?

Chris: The biggest difference between Polar Bear tobacco and the other tobacco brands represented in T206 (e.g., Piedmont, Sweet Caporal) was that it was sold in loose tobacco pouches versus rolled tobacco form (i.e., cigarettes).

This is also why finding these cards in great condition is so difficult. More than likely you will find them stained from the tobacco that was loose around the card and or with small bits of tobacco still attached to the card. To me those are some of the best Polar Bear cards because that small bit of tobacco harkens back to when it was first pulled out of the pouch in the early 1900s. You can’t replicate that in the modern Hobby.

SABR Baseball Cards: Aside from the T206 set, was Polar Bear involved in any other tobacco issues? For example, can Polar Bear backs be found in T205 or other notable sets?

Chris: As you correctly point out, Polar Bear was one of the 17 brands used in the T205 set but they are most famous for being in the T206 set.

SABR Baseball Cards: Tell us how you are keeping or displaying your collection. Slabs? Binders?

Chris: My original goal was to have a complete binder set as I always valued being able to hold a baseball card that was 110 years old as more important than owning the card itself. I never really valued a card being in a slab before because plastic is not true Americana. However, I had a shift around the 200-card mark to where I had “enough” of the feel game and started to value the look of the cards more than their feel.

Now that I’ve reached the 240+ mark in the set, I have just over 210 raw copies and 30 graded. SGC takes up the majority of the graded group with 21 in a tuxedo. I also find they display a whole lot better than the PSA versions, but you can’t beat a red portrait T206 in a red PSA flip.

SABR Baseball Cards: And what about condition? As tough as this set is to put together, I have to imagine you’ve made room for plenty of lower grade cards.

Chris: The one rule that I have always had with my Polar Bear set was to put together a back run set with very clean backs. I never honestly really cared about what the front looked like! So if you see a badly damaged Polar Bear back on my website, that is because it was obtained before I made the switch in 2021 and just haven’t gone back to upgrade it. I have financially prioritized new pickups versus upgrades the past two years.

SABR Baseball Cards: Knowing you are in the Seattle area, obviously there are no Mariners (or Pilots!) in the set. Have you adopted any particular team from the Monster as your favorite?

Chris: I will always be partial to the Chicago Cubs due to Frank Chance and Solly Hofman and the origin on my T206 collecting journey. Still, to me it was never about the teams; it was always about the back.

SABR Baseball Cards: There are so many beautiful cards in the T206 set. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, do you have a Top 5 among the Polar Bear run?

Chris: Completely ignoring how good the players are, here are my Top 5.

Christy Mathewson – This card is gorgeous to me as it shows potential rubber-band wear and tear and then someone spilled something on it in the past. Or maybe the tobacco package got wet and this is a tobacco stain.
John Titus – Everyone knows, the only man with a moustache in the entire T206 set, not just Polar Bear.
Davy Jones – What a stud in this card. Someone must have liked him as they were making the set.
Del Howard – Very unique background, which is unusual for the T206 set, along with the popped collar and I have visited his grave here in Seattle. That was an interesting moment personally speaking.
Ed Konetchy – Feels like a very 3D image that feels very hard to pull off 110 years ago. This card has always stuck out to me as being very unique versus the other action shots.

SABR Baseball Cards: Earlier, you mentioned two of the Polar Bear set’s rarities: the St. Louis variations of Demmitt and O’Hara. Are these two cards part of your Polar Bear quest, or have you set your sights on a more modest goal of 248?

Chris: I go back and forth on this all the time. When I started this back-run set I knew I was committing myself to spending $1k for the Demmitt and O’Hara cards, and I was completely fine with that. Apart from Ty Cobb, those would be my two significant purchases. However, now that Demmitt and O’Hara are going for four to five times that price, the financial decision becomes much more difficult.

This is also why I decided to add them to my Polar Bear sleeve tattoo. Getting their cards on my arm was a a tad cheaper than putting down $8k for 2 cards and while some people will view that as “crazy,” you can never tell a Polar Bear story without Demmitt and O’Hara.

SABR Baseball Cards: Wait. What?! Did you say you got those cards on your arm??

Chris:

SABR Baseball Cards: That is AWESOME! We definitely support your right to Bear arms! So the tattoos will essentially sub for the cards here?

Chris: I’m currently at 244/250 for the set. Once I get to 248, I will take a look at the market and make a decision on those last two. Ultimately, if I am going to have a complete Polar Bear set, I need to have a Demmitt and O’Hara. Maybe I will find a great deal at the 2023 National for one of these cards! You never know. That would be incredible to finish this set at the place where it all began!

SABR Baseball Cards: It’s been amazing to follow your journey. You are truly putting together something that most collectors can only dream about. Thank you so much, Chris, for taking the time to share your story with our readers.

Author’s Note: You can view Chris’ entire Polar Bear set (in progress) on his website. Take a look, it’s awesome!

Overanalyzing 1935 Goudey, Part One

Author’s note: The most detailed analysis I’ve seen on this set comes from the December 1995 edition of “The Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector” magazine, with a corresponding web version here. If you only have time for one article, I encourage you to stop reading mine and head straight to that one.

A package last year from SABR president Mark Armour sparked my interest in a set I’d previously ignored, both as a writer and a collector, even though it’s the logical sequel to two sets I’ve written about extensively.

Having recently added two of the three Dodger cards in the 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 set, I’m now feeling qualified, if not compelled, to do a deep dive. This first article will examine the basic structure of the set and highlight 11 players who have a special status on its checklist.

THE BASIC SET

The 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 (R321) set consists of 36 different unnumbered cards (ignoring back variations), some red bordered and some blue, each consisting of 4 players who are often but not always teammates.

In what I imagine was a disappointment for at least some collectors, many of the set’s images were recycled from previous Goudey issues. For example, here are the 1933 cards of Tommy Bridges and Bob O’Farrell, easily matched to their 1935 cardboard above.

In fact, most of the 1934 Goudey cards borrow all four of their images from the 1933 and 1934 sets, allowing collectors to “round the bases!”

THE MASTER SET

Adding a twist to the set is the presence of 2, 3, or 4 different backs for each of the cards in the set. For example, the Piet-Comorosky-Bottomley-Adams card below comes with four back variations, labeled by Goudey as Picture 1 card H, Picture 3 card F, Picture 4 Card F, and Picture 5 card F. (Following the VCBC article referenced earlier, I’ll use the notation 1H, 3F, 4F, and 5F from here on.)

The various card backs across the set combine to form nine puzzles in all, each with 6 or 12 pieces. Here is the Joe Cronin puzzle, also known as “Picture 5,” built from backs 5A-5F.

The full list of puzzles (pictures) is as follows. All use six pieces unless otherwise noted.

Picture 1 – Detroit Tigers (12 pieces)
Picture 2 – Chuck Klein
Picture 3 – Frankie Frisch
Picture 4 – Mickey Cochrane
Picture 5 – Joe Cronin
Picture 6 – Jimmie Foxx
Picture 7 – Al Simmons
Picture 8 – Cleveland Indians (12 pieces)
Picture 9 – Washington Senators (12 pieces)

Were one to attempt a master set, there would be 114 different cards in all. The number is a bit oddball but is the result of varying numbers of backs per card, specifically:

12 cards with two backs each = 24
6 cards with 3 backs each = 18
18 cards with 4 backs each = 72

Among the various sources available, my “go to” for the configuration of the 1935 Goudey master set (i.e., all possible front/back combinations) is Table 1 of the November 1995 VCBC article. Just note that the “Card Fronts” section of the table includes one typo (the 1J back listed for Bill Terry should be 1K), and the “Puzzle Backs” section of the table includes numerous errors.

THE SIX PANELS

Again following the naming conventions of the VCBC article, I’ll now introduce the six panels that make up the set. You can think of a panel as a group of cards whose backs generate the same set of puzzles.

Panel I

The six cards in this panel correspond to six-card puzzles 3, 4, and 5 as well as the right half of 12-card puzzle 1. (That is, each of the cards shown comes with four different backs, one for each of the puzzles just named.) Interestingly, each of the six cards features a single National League team. Star power is significant, highlighted by Babe Ruth on his brand new team, the Boston Braves.

Artwork for all 24 players comes from previous Goudey sets.

Panel II

The six cards in this panel correspond to six-card puzzles 2, 6, and 7 as well as the left half of 12-card puzzle 1. Five of the six cards feature American League teams, with the Cardinals being the lone National League team.

Again all artwork is from previous Goudey sets.

Panel III (blue borders)

The six cards in this panel, the only one with blue borders, correspond to six-card puzzles 2, 4, and 7. Where cards from panels I and II featured only one team each, we now see three cards that include multiple teams. Note for example Glenn Wright (White Sox) on a card with three Pirates on the second card shown.

You’d be smart to wonder if Wright’s inclusion on the Pirates card is the result of a late-breaking team change. For example, had he been a Pirate during the set’s planning stages, only to have an astute Goudey editor update his team the instant a deal went down? Well, Wright did in fact play for the Pirates, but it was from 1924-1928! 😊

Still, before we accuse (or credit!) Goudey with being completely random here, it’s worth noting that many of the photos from its 1933 set were taken years earlier. Therefore, the original photo used for Wright’s card may well have come from their Pirates stash.

On the other hand, such an explanation would not extend to the next card shown, which features Charlie Berry (Athletics), Bobby Burke (Senators), Red Kress (Senators), and Dazzy Vance (Dodgers). In this case, there is no single team for which the full quartet played.

Of added interest are two panel III players who also appear on panel I, though background colors differ: Gus Mancuso (Giants, shown below) and Ed Brandt (Braves).

I can almost hear the conversation now of young card swappers back in the day:

“Anyone have the blue Mancuso?”

“You mean blue borders and red background?”

“No! That’s the red Mancuso. I mean red borders and blue background!”

Backgrounds and very minor retouches aside, however, all artwork is again recycled from earlier Goudey sets. Stay tuned, however. This is about to change.

Panel IV

The six cards in this panel correspond to six-card puzzles 3, 5, and 6 as well as the right half of 12-card puzzle 1. Four of the cards are dedicated to single teams (Browns, Red Sox, Tigers, Phillies) while two feature multiple teams.

Again, we have duplicated players, this time in the form of four players we previously saw on panel I or II. Conveniently enough they appear right next to each other at the end of the bottom row: Comorosky, Bottomley, Kamm, and Cochrane.

Of particular note is the player in the bottom left position of the Phillies card: Clarence “Bubber” Jonnard, the first new player we’ve encountered thus far.

Wait, who?!

Jonnard, a coach with the Phillies in 1935 (whose later accomplishments included managing the Minneapolis Millerettes of the AAGPBL and signing Mets Ed Kranepool and Ken Singleton), literally played in one game all season, had one at-bat, and struck out in a blowout loss…a good six years after his previous major league plate appearance. Nonetheless someone at Goudey must have really wanted Bubber in the set. Not only did they find a spot for him on the checklist but they even sprung for art!

Panel V

The six cards in this panel correspond to the right halves of 12-card puzzles 8 and 9. All six cards are dedicated to single teams (5 AL, 1 NL), and no players appear on any other cards.

One player you might recognize from a previous Diamond Stars article is rookie Cy Blanton (bottom row), who got off to a blazing hot, Fernandomania-like start in 1935. I doubt anyone would have been working on his card before the season started, but it wouldn’t have taken many starts before someone at Goudey decided to add Blanton to the set.

Both Blanton and his cardboard neighbor Tom Padden required new artwork. Ditto for Tigers ace Schoolboy Rowe (bottom right corner of first card).

Panel VI

The six cards in this panel correspond to the left halves of 12-card puzzles 8 and 9. Five of the cards are dedicated to single teams (3 AL, 2 NL), and one card includes a mix of Giants and Dodgers. Each of the 24 players makes his only appearance of the set on this panel.

Here is where we see the bulk of the set’s new artwork: Rollie Hemsley of the Browns, all four Reds (Gilly Campbell, Bill Myers, Ival Goodman, and Alex Kampouris), Zeke Bonura of the White Sox, and Bill Knickerbocker of the Indians.

THE ELEVEN NEWCOMERS

All in all, the 1935 Goudey set introduced eleven new players–less than 10% of the set. Why only eleven players, and why these eleven players, I don’t know. The most intriguing theory would be that Goudey already had the artwork from a prior project (e.g., an unissued fifth series of 1934 Goudey) and saw a chance to use it here.

Unfortunately, such a theory is quickly rebutted by the specific players selected. Here is a snapshot of each player’s career from 1933-1935, using plate appearances for the position players and innings pitched for the two pitchers.

Looking at the 1934 data for Blanton, Campbell, Myers, and Goodman, it’s hard to imagine they would have been candidates for an extended 1934 Goudey set. At the same time, ten of the eleven players seem quite sensible additions to a 1935 offering, and even the one exception, Jonnard, had something of a “fun factor” going for him.

RANDOM FACTS

Though I’ve treated the 1935 artwork as if it was lifted directly from earlier sets, this wasn’t necessarily the case. Compare, for example, the Hank Greenberg artwork from 1934 and 1935, and you’ll see several subtle differences. (Plus, how would Goudey even execute such a thing using 1930s technology?)

Just as the 1934 Goudey set featured Gehrig but no Ruth, the 1935 set features Ruth but no Gehrig.
Youngsters successful in completing the entire 1933-35 Goudey run would probably find Joe Medwick to be the best player absent from their collections. Fortunately, Goudey managed to get its “ducks” in a row over the next three years with Medwick cards in 1936 Goudey Premiums, 1936-37 “Canadian Goudey,” 1937 Thum-Movies, and 1938 Goudey.
Ten Hall of Famers appeared in all three Goudey sets from 1933-35: Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, Dizzy Dean, Chuck Klein, Paul Waner, Frank Frisch, Heinie Manush, Bill Terry, Charlie Gehringer, and Kiki Cuyler.

ON DECK?

When I revisit this set I hope to offer some hints as to how the cards were divided into series and when each series might have been released. Oh, and more importantly, I hope to grab the final card I need for my Dodgers team set!

The cameos of 1938 Goudey

The 1938 Goudey issue known as “Heads Up” was an odd release in multiple ways. For one thing, card numbering begins at 241 as if a long delayed continuation of the 240-card 1933 Goudey set. For another, each of the 24 players in the set appears twice: in the first series (241-264) with a plain background and in the second series (265-288) with a cartoon background.

This article will focus on the second series and some of its more notable cartoons.

PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE CAMEOS

Two of the cards in the set may hold special interest to Pacific Coast League collectors. The cards of Frank Demaree and Bobby Doerr note their tenure with the Sacramento Senators and Hollywood Stars, respectively.

GEOGRAPHICAL CAMEOS

The Goudey set also offers some places, big and small, of interest to collectors of particular regions or geographies.

Buffalo buffs, particularly alumni of Fosdick-Masten High School, will want the card of Frank Pytlak.

Hank Greenberg’s scholastic bona fides also received mention.

Long before San Jose was a hotbed for dot-coms, microchips, and crypto, it earned some ink on the card of Marvin Owen.

The set also includes a “pre-rookie card” of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, not opened until the following year, though the card is hardly a cheap one! (It’s possible, however, that the phrase Hall of Fame may be intended here figuratively, as was the case on the back of Carl Hubbell’s 1933 Goudey card 230.)

Other places featured by the set include the “corn country of Iowa” (Bob Feller), the smokestacks of Pittsburgh (Julius Solters), the palm trees of Tampa (Al Lopez), and the sandlots of Cleveland (Joe Vosmik). We’ll also take a closer look at Pageland, South Carolina, toward the end of this article.

PLAYER CAMEOS

While Zeke Bonura himself has his own cards in the set, Zeke collectors (and yes, that’s a thing!) will want to note his shout-out on the card of Joe Kuhel.

Two Hall of Famers also appear in the set’s cartoons…as managers! Here are Bill Terry and Mickey Cochrane on the cards of Dick Bartell and Rudy York.

I’ll also offer, completely tongue-in-cheek, this Little Poison cameo.

RARE DIVERSITY

Previous baseball cards had included women, dating all the way back to the 1880s. This Babe Ruth card (or others) from the previous decade may also ring a bell. But speaking of ringing a bell, here’s the 1938 Goudey card of Zeke Bonura.

More notably, 1938 Goudey is the first U.S. baseball set to include African Americans. Sadly, the depiction is just as cringeworthy as one might expect for the era.

A VERITABLE “WHO’S ZOO” OF ANIMALS

On a lighter note, a scattering of animals across the set’s cartoons comes as no surprise, particularly when we have players named Moose (Solters) and Ducky (Medwick), not to mention various Detroit Tigers. Still, how about a jackrabbit…

or Boston Bees backstop “Señor” Al Lopez as an actual bee…

or–last but not least–a freaking octopus?!

Well, that’s all, folks, at least for the moment, but ‘toon in next time for more wacky baseball card hijinks, courtesy of yours truly!

Overanalyzing Goudey, part eight

Author’s note: This is the eighth in a series of pieces that will offer a mix of facts, unknowns, and speculation on one of the Hobby’s most iconic brands. This installment focuses on some of the more mysterious relics associated with the 1933 set.

1933 Goudey #106, Napoleon Lajoie, issued in late 1934

While the famous Napoleon Lajoie card 106 is traditionally regarded as the set’s rarest card, there are a handful of cards even more rare. One such rarity even bears the same number, 106.

Wait, WHAT?! Isn’t Durocher supposed to be card 147?

The “Keith Olbermann” Durocher, believed to be a 1/1 in the Hobby, is what’s known as a proof card from the set. Provided the card’s name is suggestive of its origin, we should imagine this card was part of a pre-production test run of the printing sheet Durocher was ultimately a part of, specifically Sheet 6. (Any speculation that the card might have been produced much earlier, for instance as part of a test run of the entire set, can be quashed by noting Durocher here is already with St. Louis, reflecting a trade that did not happen until May 7.)

An alternative explanation for Durocher 106 has been put forth, claiming it was not a pre-production proof or pre-anything but instead created by hobbyists post-1933 as a means of helping die-hard collectors complete their sets. Ignoring what would seem to be the prohibitive costs of producing a single card to this level of quality, there are at least two reasons to doubt such a hypothesis.

Duplicating a card already in the set, numbering aside, seems like the least satisfying way in the world to complete the set. I get it that maybe these guys weren’t artists, but even a newspaper picture of Hank Greenberg would seem an upgrade over the second Durocher.
Even more compelling, however, is the existence of other proof cards from the set, none of which would render any comparable service to collectors since their numbers are not 106.

Here is the most complete list of 1933 Goudey proofs I’m able to assemble.

Leo Durocher #106 (released as 147)
Eddie Farrell #107 (released as 148)
Goose Goslin #110 (released as 168)
Jack Russell #121 (shown above, released as 167)
Luke Sewell #123 (released as 163)
Al Spohrer #124 (released as 161)
Al Thomas #127 (released as 169)
Rube Walberg #128 (released as 145)

The numbering of the proof cards is interesting in that it’s hardly a random collection of numbers from 1-240. Rather, we see that all eight proof cards are clustered between the numbers 106 and 128. The numbers take on even greater significance if we consider the state of the Goudey checklist just prior to the release of the set’s sixth sheet.

Remarkably, each of the proof cards fills an existing gap in the set’s skip numbering. Were we to imagine there were once 24 such proof cards (i.e., an entire sheet), we might suppose their numbering would have been as follows. (I’ve used magenta here for the eight known proofs and a lighter pink for the remaining 16.)

Of course, Goudey’s actual Sheet 6 did not fill the gaps in the manner indicated. Instead, it left nearly all of them in place. (And we’ll return soon to the fact that only 23 new numbers are highlighted.)

Were the new numbers for all eight proof cards to be found along this blue band, the story of Sheet 6 would be a simple one: the cards were simply renumbered late in the production process to leave rather than fill gaps.

As for why this occurred, I suppose there are a couple of reasons we could ascribe. Perhaps someone simply forgot that the set employed skip numbering as a means of conning kids into buying more and more packs. Or perhaps Goudey really did intend to close out the set earlier (i.e., at 144 cards rather than 240) but shelved such plans at the eleventh hour.

Of course, as with much about this set, the answer would not be so simple. While five of the proof cards remained on Sheet 6 with new numbering, three of the proof cards (Russell, Goslin, Thomas) landed at 167-169 and would not be seen again until Sheet 7, which included cards 166-189.

Sheet 7 from 1933 Goudey set (numbering added)

Admitting some speculation here, the picture that emerges of the set’s sixth sheet is this:

Proof version: 24 cards that filled the set’s existing gaps, namely 97-99, 106-114, 121-129, and 142-144.
Final version: Renumbering of all cards, including the demotion (or promotion if you like) of at least three cards to the next release.

Now let’s take a quick look at Sheet 6 as it was actually produced.

Sheet 6 from 1933 Goudey set (numbering added)

There are at least two key features that distinguish this sheet from all five of its predecessors.

It has two of the exact same card, Babe Ruth’s iconic card 144. (This explains how the sheet only managed to check off 23 numbers earlier.)
It repeats (with new numbering and a new color in one case) the Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Babe Ruth cards from earlier releases.

These contrasts are particularly notable as Sheets 1-5 contained no repeats at all, either within or across sheets. Prior to Sheet 6, the Goudey set consisted of 120 distinct players, each appearing in the set exactly once. From this perspective, we might regard five of the cards on Sheet 6 to be anomalies:

Ruth 144 (first instance)
Ruth 144 (second instance)
Ruth 149
Foxx 154
Gehrig 160

Already knowing that at least three cards (Russell, Goslin, Thomas) were bumped from Sheet 6 between the proof and production stages, it’s intriguing to consider whether five cards may have been bumped, transforming the sheet from a fairly standard collection of 24 new players to the spectacular, mega-star studded, triple Ruth sheet we know it as today.

If so, this would constitute the biggest (and most lopsided) blockbuster trade ever made!

Sheet 6 gets Babe Ruth, Babe Ruth, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig
Sheet 7 gets Jack Russell, Goose Goslin, Al Thomas, and two players to be named later?

Extremely rare 1/0 Babe Ruth traded card

If this is indeed what happened, the next question to ask is why.

Why turn Sheet 6 from a standard sheet to a super sheet? If Goudey had figured out more stars meant more money, what a curious choice to then follow up with six minor leaguers on Sheet 7!
Why number two of the Ruth cards 144? Conventional wisdom in the Hobby is that Goudey needed the duplicate numbering in order to ensure a (near) permanent hole in the checklist, thereby causing kids to keep buying packs in futile pursuit of card 106. (I question this theory at the end of my first article.)

Returning to a theme prevalent throughout this series, the 1933 Goudey set holds and will continue to hold mysteries, no matter how much over-analysis we apply. Fortunately, at least in my view, this is precisely what makes the set so fascinating!

* * * * *

I’ll close this article with a few additional notes on the 1933 Goudey proof cards that may be of interest.

According to hobby lore, most or all of the proofs came from a single partial sheet obtained by hobby pioneer Woody Gelman directly from a source at Goudey.
While the most salient feature of the proof cards is their numbering, some also exhibit small differences in artwork or typesetting. For example, notice the placement of “AL THOMAS” on these two cards.

The Goslin proof card is an interesting one in that its number 110 was ultimately used by Goudey (probably just coincidentally) for Goslin’s other card in the set, his World Series card from Sheet 10. I’ve drawn goose eggs in my search for an image of the Goslin proof, but the Standard Catalog notes his name breaks onto two lines rather than the single line shown on his standard card.

Author’s note: If you are aware of other 1933 Goudey proofs with numbers that differed from their final printing, please let me know.

Cardboard Crosswalk: T205 Brooklyn Superbas and 1911 Spalding Guide

The Brooklyn Superbas of 1911 finished seventh in the National League standings and in attendance as well, which is to say they were not a pretty team to watch, but oh what a gorgeous team to collect!

While it’s the gold borders of these cards that give the T205 set its nickname and hallmark feature, I am just as much a fan of the rich, colorful backgrounds and simple design and an even bigger fan of the expressive (mostly) Paul Thompson portraits on which the player artwork is based. (See Andrew Aronstein’s site for some absolutely stunning side-by-side images.)

As many collectors of the T205 set are aware, many of the images used on the cards can also be found in the 1911 edition of Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide. For example, here is the two-page spread on the Brooklyn team.

The Zack Wheat image matches up nicely with his T205 card.

In all, half of the 24 Brooklyn portraits in the Guide use the same photo as an image in the T205 set. I created this mashup to show the correspondence.

As there are 14 different cards in the T205 Brooklyn team set, there are necessarily instances where cards do not match the Guide portrait.

One such example is “Bad Bill” Dahlen, who managed the team from 1910-13.

A more unusual example occurs with the Tony Smith card, which matches up to the Guide image of a different Smith: Henry Joseph “Happy” Smith.

Interestingly, the Guide image of Tony matches up with the T206 card of Happy.

My conclusion from this is that the Guide likely mislabeled its two Smith pictures. This seems more likely than the cards being wrong both years.

The third and final T205 Brooklyn card that doesn’t match the Guide image belongs to Cy Barger. Sort of.

I say “sort of” because Barger had two different cards in the T205 set but only one Guide portrait. The second of the two Barger cards, known as “Full B on Cap,” is the one that matches the Guide.

That Barger had two cards in the set is curious but hardly unique. Seven other subjects had multiple cards in the set as well: Roger Bresnahan, Hal Chase, Eddie Collins, Russ Ford, Bob Harmon, Bobby Wallace, and Hooks Wiltse. That Barger had the least impressive resume of the lot, circa 1911, may or may not be significant, and we’ll return to it shortly.

Returning to the crosswalk, there are a dozen Guide images that failed to make it onto cards, including the Smith and Dahlen portraits already discussed.

Had the set lived up the “400 designs” promised on the backs of the cards, perhaps we’d have cards of all or most of these players.

While four of the “missing” players made it into the T207 “Brown Backgrounds” set the following year, some had to wait all the way until the 1990 Target Dodgers mega-set to get their first cards with the team.

Before closing out the crosswalk portion of this article, I’ll note that there are two other pages of the Guide that include photographs of Brooklyn players. Each of pages 34 and 36 features four-player composites using photographs taken by Charles Conlon.

Collectors may recognize the Bergen image on page 34 as matching one of his two T206 cards, but none of the images provide matches to T205.

Having exhausted the Spalding Guide/T205 crosswalk angle, I’ll now return to the two cards of Cy Barger for something of a postscript.

When I first saw these two cards, I firmly believed they showed two different players, the shapes of the face and ears initially striking me as most discrepant. With Barger also being an unusual player to double up on in the set, I wondered if the reason for the second card was that the first card depicted the wrong guy. In other words, did the two cards represent an error card and its correction?

Let’s assume for a minute that this error/correction theory is correct. Perhaps the first question to ask is which card, if either, shows the real Cy Barger. As the Spalding Guide matches “Full B,” let’s start there. Additionally, as my wallet can attest, “Full B” is the more common of the two, which is what we would expect where errors and corrections are concerned.

However, any further scrutiny seems to torpedo the error/correction theory. Take the population report for the set, for example. Were one card a correction of the other, we would expect the combined population of the two cards to correspond roughly to that of a typical card in the set. Conversely, if the set simply (intentionally or not) doubled up on Bargers, then we would expect their combined population to be roughly double of a typical card in the set.

What we do find (as of May 31, 2022) is that the PSA population report for “Partial B” is 125 and “Full B” is 249. Meanwhile the population for a typical card in the set appears to be in the 200-250 range. This seems to refute the error/correction theory, instead suggesting “Full B” as a standard print and “Partial B” as a short-print in the set.

Were an error and correction at play, we would also not expect to see continued or repeated usage of the erroneous image on other cards. However, there are two other sets where both Barger images appear.

The first is the S74 Silks set, in which “Full B” appears on white silks and “Partial B” appears on colored silks.

The precise dating of these silks within the 1909-11 window can vary by source, though most that differentiate between white and colored have the former preceding the latter. (See the S74 website for an argument that dates the white silks to mid-1911 and the colored silks to later in the year.) Provided the white silks indeed came first, then we would have the correct Barger image replaced by the incorrect one, which feels odd. Obviously, odder things have happened in the baseball card universe, but I’d still say the Silks provide yet another blow to the error/correction theory.

We also see both Barger images in the 1912 Hassan Triple Folder (T202) set. Certainly one possibility is that T205 artwork, known errors and all, was simply recycled into T202 without scrutiny. More plausibly, however, there was no known error to begin with.

The two Barger images appear in several other issues, though not together. For example, here is the “Full B” image used in a few oddball issues of the period: 1909-12 Sweet Caporal Domino Discs, 1910-12 Sweet Caporal Pins, and 1911 Helmar Stamps.

Meanwhile here is the “Partial B” image used in the 1914 Helmar Art Stamp issue, which a discerning eye will note places him with the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League. Careless recycling? Perhaps. Or, as before, we can take this as another nail in the coffin of the error/correction theory.

Even with the error/correction theory looking like a big, fat nothingbarger, a question still alive is whether one of the two Barger images is an uncorrected error, or UER as we way in the Hobby.

To no avail, I’ve tried to locate a source photograph for the “Partial B” image, even going so far as reviewing all 350+ portraits across the 16 teams in the Spalding Guide. I’ve also reviewed a couple years or so of images from old newspapers thanks to the free newspapers.com access our SABR memberships now include.

Finally, I’ve looked at the various Cy Barger cards that use neither the “Full B” nor “Partial B” image in hopes that they might provide hints.

In the end, I’m not sure any of the Barger cards, save the first two, look like the same guy, and that may well be the true conclusion of all this. There is always some “drift” in creating artwork from photographs, and this is only accentuated when the photos themselves differ. Each piece of art, or baseball card in our case, may resemble its source photograph reasonably well while at the same looking very different from other art of the same subject.

Personally, I still see two different guys on the T205 Barger cards. However, it’s no longer a hill I’d die on but one I can only Cy on. Feel free to share your own take in the Comments.

Error cards

Sometime last year I picked up the last card I needed for my 1980 Topps set, placed it into its nine-pocket, and then took my well earned victory flip through the binder of majestic completed pages…only to find a page with a missing card. Dewey defeats Truman. Defeat from the jaws of victory. Bird steals the inbound pass.

Completing a set without actually completing a set is just one of the many cardboard errors I’ve made lately. Here are three more.

My largest player collection (by about 600) is the 700+ playing era cards I have of Dwight Gooden. For whatever reason, I decided a couple years back that the card at the very top of my Dr. K want list was Doc’s 1986 Meadow Gold milk carton “sketch” card.

I’d seen the card on eBay in the $10 range for a while, but you don’t amass 700+ cards of a guy by paying $10 each. At last one turned up for more like $3 and I couldn’t hit “Buy It Now” fast enough. When the card arrived I was genuinely excited to add it to my binder, only to find…

…I already had the card!

Just two weeks later, I “doubled” down by adding a card I thought I needed for my 1972 Fleer Laughlin Famous Feats set.

#MailDay goof! Thought I needed this Speaker but actually needed #31 Bill Klem? If you’re working on this set and can use this Tris, it’s on the house! pic.twitter.com/A2S0fjWlQj
— Heavy J ✨ #JG20MVP 🏆 (@HeavyJ28) March 18, 2022

And again…

On the bright side, it’s not like these cards cost me real money. I’d never make the same mistake adding this Kaiser Wilhelm to my T206 Brooklyn team set, right?

Oops. Think again.

Of course what Hobbyist hasn’t accidentally added the occasional double or two…or three? Probably most, but how many could pull off the feat three times in one month?

In the corporate world, bosses would be calling for a root cause analysis and demanding corrective action. Am I simply getting old? Do I have too many different collections going? Have I gotten lazy at updating my want lists? In truth, probably yes to all three.

As a kid, and I think this was true of most die-hard collectors, I could open a pack and instantly know which cards I needed and which were doubles. I could do the same at card shows, looking through a dealer binder or display case. When it came to cards I had total recall. Evidently such cardboard lucidity is long gone, and it’s probably not a stretch to assume the same degradations have spread to various areas of adulting.

On the other hand, it’s also true that my purchases had much more riding on them back then. For one thing, every nickel, dime, and quarter were precious. Spending $0.50 on a 1963 Topps Ernie Banks (ah, the good old days!) when your entire card show budget (i.e., life savings) was $3.80 “borrowed” from various sources around the house was high finance. Add to that baseball cards being the only thing I thought or cared about, and it makes sense that I always batted a thousand.

An eternal optimist, it’s just not my nature to brand my “triple double” as what some collectors might bill a #HobbyFail. Rather, I’ll take solace in the adage errare humanum est and remember that it’s not the mistakes we make but how we respond to them that defines our true character. As a kid I would have sulked for weeks having committed even one of these blunders. Today I can laugh (and write) about them. Call these senior moments if you will, but isn’t”growing up” just a bit more pleasing to the ear?

Now does anyone wanna trade me a T205 Wilhelm for a T206?

UPDATE: The Wilhelm is no longer available for trade! About an hour after publishing this post the seller contacted me to let me know he’d accidentally sold it to someone else already. I guess I’m not the only one losing track of his cards these days! 😊

Cardboard Fingerprints

One of my oldest card collecting projects dates back to college and began, if I remember correctly, with a book I no longer have. The book was one of many along the theme of “baseball’s greatest players” but was particularly nice in that it included full-page photographs of every player.

In a move that perhaps foretold my joining SABR 30 years later, my roommate and I made copies of 50 of the pictures and arranged them nearly floor to ceiling to create our apartment’s own “Wall of Fame.” I recall we even put some care into the ordering of the players with the occasional new insight from “Total Baseball” prompting a reordering ceremony from time to time.

Soon after, we also began pinning our best baseball cards onto bulletin boards. (Don’t panic. The pins only went thru the penny sleeves.) Thanks to the Kit Young mail order catalog and a dealer named “Big John” who frequented local shows, we were able to update our Boards quite frequently. Naturally, any change to the Board was a major event in our apartment.

Following our graduation, my roommate eventually moved south and I moved north, which spelled the end of my Board. As remains the case today, most of my joy in collecting involved sharing the Hobby with others. In my new environment I didn’t have any friends who collected, so my grad school décor switched to Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Fast forward two decades to 2014. I lived alone much of the week, had all kinds of time on my hands, and had just realized you could buy almost any baseball card you wanted on the internet. Unlike my college days where I made $6 an hour grading math homework, I now had a “real job,” hence real money to spend. This of course meant only one thing.

The Board was back!

Or should I say the Boards were back? I went with two display cases to fill side by side, setting the table (or rather the wall) for what I now call my “Top 100” project. Both Boards have seen numerous changes over the past eight years, typically prompted by a desire to add a player or set I didn’t already have.

For example, just last week I was able to swap out my 1935 Diamond Stars Joe Medwick card for his card from the 1938 Goudey set, thereby adding another classic set to my display. (Insert your own bad pun about getting my Duckies in a row.)

This Board and the 1958-81 version that hangs next to it are favorites in my collection for a couple reasons. One is simply that the cards themselves are wonderful. The other is that these Boards connect my present day collecting to my past. What else in my life did I begin at age 20 that I’m still working on past age 50? Among that which is tangible on this Earth, only myself and my card collection, and certainly more the latter if we’re being honest.

Even beyond the two reasons given, there is a third reason these Boards are as central as they are to my collection. Simply put, the Board uniquely defines who I am as a collector. As with fingerprints, I suspect no two collectors would ever possess the same Board. Really, who would even dispute such a claim, particularly if the collections in question amounted to 50 or 100 cards? However, I tend to think the claim holds even limited to five cards.

Following the craze of this past month or so, here is what my cardle might look like. (Two new cards from other displays make an appearance here.)