Never-Before-Seen Babe Ruth prewar card coming soon to Heritage!
 

For those that may not have seen on Facebook or Twitter in the last week or two, I recent acquired a never-before-seen (so far) Babe Ruth card! It’s currently being graded by PSA and has been consigned to Heritage Auctions for their Winter Platinum Auction in February…

A newly discovered variant of the well-known “Sports & Games” tobacco set, this Ruth is part of a near complete set (24/25) that has the text in the back entirely in Spanish! Believed to be from around the same time as the other known sets - 1929-1930 or so.

The photos attached show the backs. When compared to the wording on the English variation, it is word-for-word identical with the only exception being this new Ruth saying “Chile” instead of “England” at the bottom.

Known populations to this point?…

PSA - 0
SGC - 0
BGS - 0
CSG - 0

Anson Whaley did a nice write up of the set with images I shared with him of the cards. The write up can be found here:

https://prewarcards.com/2022/12/22/g...TSzCv6z5-1mus8

Heritage will be auctioning the Ruth by itself and the rest of the set as a second lot. Excited to see how it does with Heritage in February!

Thanks for reading and happy collecting!

buena suerte

Very nice and good luck with it.

Def an interesting new variation I've never seen before. Should sell for a bit of a premium over the common churchman.

I found the 25th card online, and figured I would bump the old thread

https://i.imgur.com/9imEyf5.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/cREOBk6.jpeg

Let’s see it inside the PSA holder…….

Here it is, along with the other variations.

I’ m glad this thread popped up again. I’ve been studying the British American Tobacco Company Booklet published by the Cartophilic Society of Great Britain in the 1950s.These cards were distributed by the British American Tobacco Company probably in the 1930s. At the time of the Booklet’s publication, the set was known to have existed in Argentina though it was never seen by the Society members. They believed the set was manufactured in Chile ( British American Tobacco had a manufacturing plant there) and distributed to Argentina , other parts of South America , and perhaps, Spain.

Based on the agreement between American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco in 1902 the set most likely was not distributed in Cuba. Likewise , The BAT English Version was NOT distributed in the UK nor the US, but rather was distributed in Malaysia, other parts of Southeast Asia, and probably China.

I would be interested to know if there is difference in the card stocks between the English Version and the Spanish Version.

BTW, nice pick-up.

Very nice. Reminds me of other UK dual sets like Machado Tobacco (Jamaica).

Great image Gary, Are you the person who won the lot at Heritage?

Thanks, Eddie. I couldn't tell if there is much of a difference between the card stocks


Hi Max, yes, I did win the lot on Heritage for this. I'm just keeping the Ruth card, and I'll probably get around to selling the rest of the lot sometime later when I find time to scan the cards and create ebay listings for them.