1932 Sanella Babe Ruth - Wisdom Wanted
 

I always come on this board, especially for insight on cards I'm less educated about.

The most recent card is the 1932 Sanella Babe Ruth.

I read some articles on it, including its origin and historical importance. It seems to be the cheapest Ruth card, and a must have for any collector with a lower end budget.

I do have a couple questions.

How is this card viewed in the hobby? Is it better to buy the full set in the book, or the card by itself? What is the value of it, and can it be had cheaper at a card show than on eBay ($90-120 based on current listings and recent sales)?

Thanks in advance, y'all!

I would suggest if you see that card at a show it is likely to be grossly marked up. Will have some dopey sticker on it with two prices, and one will be very high and unrealistic and the number below that will just be too high. Avoid shows. Be careful with buy it nows. I would wait for it to come to an auction house and figure out where your comfort level is before starting bidding. It is a nice card but obviously not considered a Ruth rarity. Sign up for the Collectable app and track it to see when it appears. App is free.

I would not consider it a must have and honestly am not a big fan as the likeness is not that recognizable to the layman.

I would prefer a less common period card with a good likeness.

As for the card show angle, you would be very unlikely to find a lower price than an ebay auction. The more likely situation would be a highly overpriced example looking for a rookie to unknowingly pay more for a ruth example. An ebay auction is your best bet.

It's on thin stock and is very easy to find in high grade, but is a good looking card. It is usually bought and sold as a single. Foreign baseball cards are usually discounted, but I think the German text on back makes it interesting. If someone wants an affordable Ruth from his playing days, it's a nice buy.

Due to the plenitude in high grade, some have wondered if there are a bunch of modern reprints. However, I examined a high grade example and it was definitely period.

I'm not a big fan...I used to have the complete set...they are kinda cool to look at...but I dont like the paperlike stock...or the style/colors/likeness. I'd rather have the shonen...which I do have.

In fact I feel these are more stamp like than card like.

If you want a low price card that is easier to recognize as the Babe I would recommend his 1932 Bulgaria Sport. Nice clear black and white photo of him with Max Schmelling.

https://s.yimg.com/fz/api/res/1.2/HC...dGw~~60_35.JPG

The 1929 Shonen Club Ruth is another foreign card of him that is affordable (generally seems to sell for a bit more than the Sanella but not too much). Its basically a postcard with a pretty good action shot of him, and Japanese text on the side.

Inexpenisive Ruth Cards
 

British American Tobacco & affiliates produced a very nice card between 1929 & 1935.
Same image as the Japanese postcard, but the back is printed in English and ex to ex-mt examples are under $250 on ebay!

the sanella is a very nice card, its over sized, so its bigger than a normal card. Very cool card and comes with 4 slightly different backs. There are other cards with a better picture of ruth at the same price point. Ebay would be your best bet as far as price. i prefer a graded version instead of the whole book / set. Good luck

Thank you all for the responses and suggestions. I didn't realize it was a paper stock. I don't like thin and flimsy.

I appreciate the other suggestions. Obviously I'm on a budget, hence the interest in the Sanella.

I will probably pass on the Sanella, and go for a different, more highly thought of affordable Ruth at some point.


A little side note... eBay is offering me 10% eBay bucks on an item of $50 or more. That's what sparked my interest in the Sanella Ruth. That being said, any other affordable, yet interesting suggestions for Hall of Famer cards are welcome.

1932 Sanella Babe Ruth


This Babe Ruth collectible was meant to be pasted into a very large All-Sports album produced in Germany by the Sanella Margarine Co.

I have this album complete with all the world-wide athletes of that era. If anyone here is interested, I will check it out to see if a certain
athlete of interest is included in this album.


http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/t...lababeruth.jpg



TED Z
.

I actually think the "likeness" is spot on. Here is the original, type 1 photo I own for comparison. It is an early image(1921) of Babe' classic "hr" pose.

I sometimes wonder how all these pre-war German cards, obviously made of paper, survived the allied fire bombing of WWII and somehow migrated back to the States. Returning GI's who picked them up while part of the occupying force, maybe? I know the notorious Alan Hager auctioned off a small cache of Sanellas about 20 years ago and hyped them beyond belief. Because of his involvement and later retreat from the industry, I think the cards became a bit tainted and prices really never recovered.

Interesting question. There are a decent amount of Bulgaria Sport cards around but not a ton. I had to actually contact a collector in Germany to put together the checklist for PSA's Set Registry composite for the set so it has flown pretty well under the radar. For the longest time I had the only set even started, I think there are three of us now.

It was really just a few cities that were subject to intense fire bombing during the war, so most of them probably survived (same with the 1929 Shonen Club in Japan).

With the Shonen Clubs (I assume the Sanellas are the same) they are probably easier to find in the US than they are in their country of origin these days. Not sure if that is the result of one person buying them all up at once and shipping them over, or just a steady drift of them one by one over the years as American collectors came across them. On Ebay there are usually 2-3 copies available at any given time and they show up in auction houses too, but on Yahoo Auctions Japan (Japan`s version of Ebay) they only pop up for sale infrequently.

Hey guys,

The 112 Sportscards in this set (and their associated Album) were issued in 1932. The War in Europe did not start until at least 8 years later.
Therefore, there was plenty of time for many of these cards to be brought to the U.S.


TED Z
.

Illustrated here is the page in the 119-page Sanella Album with the Babe Ruth card.

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...abeRuth25x.jpg




Another page features an Olympic (5 Gold Medals) speed Skater Clas Thunberg card....and, a card depicting the famous Heavyweight Fight between
Max Schmeling and Jack Sharkey in New York City in 1932 (Sharkey won).

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...Sharkey25x.jpg




TED Z
.

Thanks for posting the pages, Ted.

I like the card and would like to own one but I see so MANY of them for sale on ebay it makes me wonder if the card was not reprinted at some point in Post War Germany. If not then a LOT of them survived the Third Reich and WW2! Of course a bunch could have came on the market from the east after German Reunification.
Still I am a little leary of them. I bid 90 bucks for one a couple weeks ago and it ended up going for 112 or so. I would be afraid to give more than 100 for a slabbed example honestly.

As I have posted, I have the entire set and the Album titled "Handbuch des Sports", that contains all these Sports cards....its Copyright is 1932.

All these Sportscards (including Babe Ruth) were printed and issued circa 1932.

I understand it was copyright 1932 and was printed during that period. I am just saying that I have no way of knowing additional copies have not been printed in Germany (or elsewhere) since the end of WW2 or in modern times.

This could be said about any card.:)

I am assuming you are pondering the matter of purchasing a period Babe Ruth strictly to own and enjoy for your collection, not to flip it in 6 months.

It's a very common concern among us as to whether there's actually "a ton of them out there that haven't been graded". Compounded by the fear a huge find of unsold stock of the Sanellas with come on the market. Come on, now, the chance of a find is something each of us lives with. Are you really enjoying yourself being consumed with such a preoccupation with the thoughts you expressed?

OK, so the Sanella is a rather common Ruth. It certainly is a recognizable image of the Babe. Are you despondent over the thought if you bought the card, everybody else on Net54 probably has one as well? I can understand that to a point, honestly, but if you wind up buying the Sanella Babe, and somehow allow yourself the luxury of showing it off to any of us, it might really surprise you how few of us own one.

If you confine yourself to the known rarities that also happen to be beautiful, such as the 1914 Baltimore News, but no doubt that was not your intention, triple negative not withstanding!

A Sanella is regarded much more highly than the beautiful Golden Press Hall of Fame, or 1949 Leaf, or a Kellogg's / Rold Gold 3-D. OK, most would not put a Sanella above the Leaf; I just feel the former has so much more eye-appeal, and is very much a career period card. The Leaf was produced in honor of Babe's sad passing, and moreover, many guys collect this set. A Sanella is a lot more respectable than a 1935 4-in-1 Goudey; again, the Sanella has so much more eye candy over the four-players to a card Goudey. I'm sure you weren't contemplating a modern Ruth, though a POST-WAR thread was initiated in the past few days about what modern Ruths are recommended to own, and in which you yourself chimed in.

Though the Sanella is almost paper-thin, so are the 1914-15 Cracker Jack. Once graded by PSA, immediately the card carries more cache, security, and finally the definite weight gain that always seems to help the collector, psychologically, with his thin cards.

A lot of thoughts here, and most I gave are to jar you on how you're coming across. I could use that right now, probably. It goes back to "supply and demand". Sanellas have a strong supply, but you and I are pretty aware of the massive demand for George Herman. I say spend your time finding a specimen that really does it for you, having the characteristics of a card you love, and buy it. Your bread in exchange for some vintage butter that has aged beautifully. Not trying to butter you up, bub, but judging from Babe's white cap on the Sanella, the original photo was taken when The Babe was becoming THE BAMBINO.

My nickel pack's worth.;) ---Brian Powell

PS---Don't waste your money on buying an entire set, just to get the Babe, unless the raw Ruth is outstanding, and the set price is not much more expensive than a nice graded Ruth itself. Again, if the Babe in a set or major group really pushes your button, OK, but factor in the probable grade PSA will give it, and its value for that grade. Remember, don't be too liberal gauging the grade YOU THINK PSA will award it.

I think the reason they are so readily available at reasonable price has more to do with demand than supply or reprint fears. Obviously they printed a lot of them - the PSA pop for all variations combined is about 1,000 and we can assume that there are many ungraded. However, with Sanellas people don't hold them tightly or hoard them unlike, say, 33 Goudey Ruths (where PSA has graded 850-1000 of each of the 4 poses) - but there is a much higher demand and therefore higher prices in spite of the fact that there are a lot more of each graded Goudey Ruth than there are of each graded Sanella.

I had a PSA graded one a few years back and it was definitely from the 1930s. I examined it under the microscope and it used a type of ink that was discontinued in the 1930s.

Thank you. That is what I was wondering. It just seemed strange to me so many are around in this country in such fine shape considering their origin was Weimar Germany during such a turbulent period. Assuming many fewer people collect them than the Goudey cards would help explain why you see them for sale so often.

As for the condition, Sanella distributed a lot of the albums like the one Ted posted, so it makes sense that many survive in high grades because lots of cards were immediately stored flat in books.

I bid on the one listed on eBay last week, thought it was interesting. My bid was very low because I didn't have any information on it and was just curious to see what it would sell for. :rolleyes:

I like the Sanella, in that it's period, cheap and a very nice image of Ruth imo...

I too really like the Shonen Postcard, that would probably be my favorite in the sub $250 price range. Unless you get a nice deal on a rough exhibit or something.

Others have opined already with good advice on the Sanella.
+1 on all accounts. Though I think in the $250 range (lower end but doable with patience) a Fro Joy or 1928 Babe Ruth Candy card can be had and should be considered. That being said the Sanellas can still be had much cheaper. All are good choices though. It's hard to go too wrong with Ruth as long as you do your homework first.

Album page......
 

Two of the 112 Sanella brand Sportscards are BB related. The Babe Ruth card and this one depicting a Japanese BB catcher in training in Berlin at the Tempelhof Air Field.
Circa early 1930's, the Japanese formed their first Professional Baseball League.



http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...tcherPix25.jpg




TED Z
.