Gehrig playing card ( five of hearts )
 

I have a playing card that appears to have been promotion for a gas station. Could anyone help shed a little light on this card. Thanks.

Cool piece, looks like Lou Gehrig to me.

Thanks, I'll get that changed.

It is cool but common. They came in full decks (per player) and there is a Ty Cobb and a few other baseball players. They are worth around 1.00 each but they are still cool. They are from the early 1950s.

Alan

Also cool is that living players (at time they were released) were depicted as part of the scene, such as seen with Ty Cobb. Players that had passed away (like Gehrig and Ruth) are seen as looming spirits of baseball good will.

Brian

Card
 

Series included full decks of Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, maybe a few others ….. all with ghostly background images encouraging youth…. the Cobb is of a living Cobb as he wasn’t a ghost yet!! By the way, I think they usually sell for more like $5-10 a card or more…. but they are pretty common.

I raised Lou from his state of repose.

Brian

Brown & Bigelow 1953 and blank ones (no advertising) seem to be a little more desirable. I've seen gas stations, hardware stores and news stands so these were basically trade cards that were sold to businesses to use as advertising. I imagine the original printer also did the customization for people. In addition to the players listed above Connie Mack was also a subject.

PSA does grade them but they're fairly easy to get high grades on like most playing cards.

https://thecollectorconnection.com/b...e?itemid=10313

These also showed up in Ink Blotters.

Owned this for 35 years
 

Album

Certainly artistic, but I never cared for the genre of dead guys in the sky with little kids. Always sort of cringe. Just my opinion.

Also
 

Thought this was kinda cool….. bought here in the last year

+1 on that.

Honus Wagner is also in the set, similar to Cobb, as Honus was still alive.


Steve

Thanks, this information is very helpful and super interesting.

I have the entire deck of Ty Cobb. Picked it up years ago only because the city mentioned is close to where I grew up.