NEW R-UNCATALOGED ISSUE? 1930's Wolverine Gum "Sky Writer Gum-Baseball Greats"

[rhettyeakley]

Neat issue that I had never heard of nor had I ever read anything about.

Wolverine Gum (of Detroit) is undeniably best known for their very popular 1937 R21 Ripley's Believe It Or Not series.

The nature of this series probably led to it's rarity as one was asked to essentially destroy the item in order to find the answer to the quiz question. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the wrapper/card that I picked up does not have the answer visible, but if it did it would date the issue very conclusively. The patent number on front refers to the pyro-technology of applying heat to display a hidden image and was issued in 1930 so it can't be from before then. My guess would be from the 1935-39 era or so as that was the era of the Overland Candy set along with others like the non-sports "Guess What" series, etc. I also venture that the answer to the posed question may be Bob Feller, which would date it to 1937.

Anyways, obviously it will not win any type of beauty contests as an issue but I was pretty excited to find it as I had never heard of anything like this. IMO it is a fairly significant find even if only a handful will probably care. I tried illumination with light source but couldn't see an answer on the item and will try a blacklight at some point but it may not still be visible after so much time.

Anyways, here it is in all it's simplistic glory...