I fell in love with this Babe Ruth all over again!
 

I like to call the 1919-21 W514 Babe Ruth *The* Curse of the Bambino card. I fell in love with it when I saw that he was depicted as a member of the Red Sox, and read Yankees at the bottom. This is one of his earliest (if not first!) Yankees card.

I was partially heartbroken when I found Wally Pipp of the Yankees had red sleeves in the same set - Ruth's red sleeves were the reason I thought the pic was for Boston, so that went out the window.

I took to the internet, and found a picture of him hitting as a member of the Red Sox and did some photoshop work. What I found made me fall in love all over again with this card. The artwork on the W514 wasn't just some freehand work by the artist - it was based off of a true Boston Red Sox picture. Check it out!

http://mycollectionofcards.com/baseb...1021/w5143.jpg

Here is a video of me walking through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbdHuMz-eFg

Such a neat, underrated card that perfectly encapsulates the Curse of the Bambino.

Wow. Great work as always!

Good stuff Tanner.

That is fantastic. Awesome work man.

Excellent, that is really cool.

Very cool to know as I am an owner of this card as well : )

https://photos.smugmug.com/T206/i-Db...E209C51-XL.jpg

Very nice! I am fortunate to own both the card and the type 1 photo. There is a distinct Conlon connection to this set that i was quietly holding back(trying to add more). I own the joe Jackson and happy felsch type 1s. The ty Cobb is also a Conlon image.

Nice work there. Definitely one of his best-looking strip cards.

Thank you everyone!

Excellent - it looks GREAT!

Uhmm ... WOOOW!!!! So ridiculously cool. Thank you for sharing!

Tan Man does it, again! Nice work.

Fantastic research and editing!

Here's my W514 Ruth (not for sale).

Always fun to confirm that the artwork seen on vintage cards did not come out of thin air. And your presentation certainly makes it easy to see. Great job!

Brian

Awesome research! I had never noticed that before.

Awesome!
 

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you guys!

Tanner, you've increased my appreciation for the W514 cards. Thank you!

The first time I saw W514s, W512s, W515s... I wondered why anyone would bother to collect those bits of paper. They weren't cards, they were paper. Crude paper, like construction paper from kindergarten days. The fronts reminded me of the comic pages in an old Sunday newspaper. No printing on the back... Yuck. So I ignored them, passed up buying opportunities 30-35 years ago.

I'm now thankful that I outgrew that. I got W512s together, then a smattering of W513s, W514s, and W515s. Then about ten years ago I got a bit more interested in the players in W514, what a great assortment. Oh how I wish McMullen had gotten to the majors maybe 2 years sooner, and gotten a card in W514. I consider W514s one of the greatest snapshots of ballplayers. And what you've done shows that those fronts aren't mere comic strip type drawings; they are thoughtfully considered renderings. I like that Ruth's card shows him as a Yankee but its origin is from a Red Sox photograph.

Thank you for completing your search, and sharing it with us here.

Thank you, Frank!