W553 Checklist or is it Leader Novelty?

[mike_v]

Whoa! I was searching for W553 Ruths to test the theory I just posted about (torn bottom edges) and came across the following copy from Leon Luckey's site:
http://luckeycards.com/pw553ruth4.jpg
The back of the card didn't seem odd to me at first, but then I noticed the pencil writing. First thought was: "What a coincidence, some kid wrote the player's name on the back along with a random number that must refer to a checklist from some other set. That's just like what my grandpa did on all of his W553s."

Then I took another look at my grandpa's blue Ruth W553:
http://mikeandlinda.smugmug.com/Othe...2279&k=Nf5N2pK
and realized:
HOLY #*%&-- LEON LUCKEY HAS THE WHITE W553 RUTH THAT USED TO BELONG TO MY GRANDPA!!!
What a ridiculously small world-- Leon even posted on this thread a few days ago!
I can't believe that. I wonder if the missing blue Hornsby and both Gehrigs are also out there somewhere with their names penciled in on the back... .

[Leon]

Originally Posted by mike_v

Whoa! I was searching for W553 Ruths to test the theory I just posted about (torn bottom edges) and came across the following copy from Leon Luckey's site:
http://luckeycards.com/pw553ruth4.jpg
The back of the card didn't seem odd to me at first, but then I noticed the pencil writing. First thought was: "What a coincidence, some kid wrote the player's name on the back along with a random number that must refer to a checklist from some other set. That's just like what my grandpa did on all of his W553s."

Then I took another look at my grandpa's blue Ruth W553:
http://mikeandlinda.smugmug.com/Othe...2279&k=Nf5N2pK
and realized:
HOLY #*%&-- LEON LUCKEY HAS THE WHITE W553 RUTH THAT USED TO BELONG TO MY GRANDPA!!!
What a ridiculously small world-- Leon even posted on this thread a few days ago!
I can't believe that. I wonder if the missing blue Hornsby and both Gehrigs are also out there somewhere with their names penciled in on the back... .

Very cool Mike. Sometimes I will erase marks and other times I don't. I won't usually erase them when there is potential for some more info being gleaned from the marks. I have a few other cards that have historical type writing too. On this Ruth I just never cracked it to to erase the marks. If we can find a suitable replacement, and you are going to collect the cards, I wouldn't mind trading my Ruth to you in order to get it back into your (grandfather's) collection. best regards

[iggyman]

First of all, let me apologize to Peter for constantly updating a non T206 thread (sorry Peter ). Hopefully, he won't get too upset. Okay, back to the task at hand; now that we know the order of the "ten known" cards in the W553 set, we can start to play all sorts of games.

For instance, if you took the graded W553 set that sold in the Legendary August 2010 auction and lined them up...

W553 Complete.jpg

Well, looky here, it sure hints at the fact that they all were originally in the same ten card strip. If no objections are heard from the four or five students still in the class, I'm going to count these cards as a third confirmation of the ten card strip theory. Regrettably or not, the dealer who won the cards discarded sold them on eBay for some green paper (I know a silly trade). Thus, a complete ten card "cut" strip which was probably original owner, is now scattered across the known prewar card universe. Does anybody volunteer a couple dozen or so years of their lives to put them together again?

Lovely Day...

[mike_v]

Iggy, I was actually looking at the same thing. I'm not sure this red set should be counted as confirmation, though. This set looks off-center (shifted to the right). If you look at the left margin of the top five cards, they look pretty consistent, but the left margin of the bottom five looks quite different (wider). That makes me think these 10 cards were *not* once a single strip. Thoughts?

Also, I'm not sure that the top-to-bottom cut matching is as clear as it is on our 3 sets. Looks like these have been trimmed down. But I suppose there aren't any large-bottom-margin to large-top-margin pairings, which is something.

[mike_v]

Leon, it certainly would be nice to reunite that collection. Even more if I could find the missing Gehrigs and Hornsby (probably not too likely!?). But for now, please just let me know if you ever get a hankering to do anything with that card, and in the meantime I'll educate myself a bit more and continue to sort through the rest of the collection to see where I'd like to go from here. Will be in touch. Thanks.

BTW Iggy- Right era, but my grandfather was a St Louis guy. Is that address near and dear to you? I'm not too far away...

[glchen]

BTW, looks like that I own the W553 Gehrig from the Legendary auction. I was not the originally winner of that lot however, and don't know where the other cards are.

[iggyman]

Mike,

The first five cards from the Legendary auction (Fritch, Goslin, O'Doul, Simmons, and Cochrane) have a little bit of a blank right border and line-up really nicely. While the next five (Grove, Grimes, Hornsby, Gehrig, and Ruth) are cut right on the edge of the right border with no blank cardboard space. At first glanced, I assumed a slight angle cut but now I'm not so sure. These cards obviously saw a blade before the cross country trip to SGC, which makes it tough to tell.

3411 N. 2nd St., Phila., PA was the address of Bubble Gum Novelties (Marble Gum). Evidence indicates that the W553 set, containing sports and non-sports cards, was perhaps printed at that address and packaged with gum. That is, the w553 set is actually one of the first (actually second) baseball cards issued with gum (Colgan chips a round baseball player portrait disc about the size of a silver dollar was distributed with gum in 1909). One day I will start a Net54 poll to determine whether the Colgan chips are actually baseball cards?????

[iggyman]

Gary, I really like the red W553 Gehrig. You can see the cut line on the top border where someone made a real nice cut. The bottom border was obviously left alone and probably exhibits the original cut from a circa 1930's kid. Nice card!

Lovely Day...