1923 Exhibit Boxing Near Set (43/50); Item now on Ebay

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I am offering a very tough near set for sale. The 1923 Exhibit boxing set consists of 48 known dated cards plus two cards (Harry Greb and Harry Wills) that do not have copyright dates but are in the same format as the 1923 set right down to the handwriting used on the card fronts. The record on the Greb card runs through November 5, 1923 and in place of the 1923 copyright line is a note about one of the bouts. Wills was a top contender who was signed to meet Jack Dempsey in 1924 but the fight was called off for racist reasons, resulting in Dempsey’s loss of his license in New York State. His card has a record through November 4, 1923. I strongly suspect that the Wills and Greb cards replaced cards on the initial 1923 sheet in a late 1923 or early 1924 printing.

Included in the near set are all of the major stars, including two Jack Dempsey cards, Gene Tunney, Benny Leonard, Sam Langford, Jess Willard, Luis Firpo, and the Greb and Wills undated cards. The only cards missing are six commons (Hudkins, Kilbane, Mello, Miske, Wells and Wilde) plus the third Dempsey pose. The set averages vg with 1 Dempsey vg-ex 1 good, Langford vg, Leonard g-vg, Tunney vg+, Willard g, Wills g. A checklist of the full set is as follows:

Joe Benjamin
Jack Britton
Joe Burman
Georges Carpentier
Jimmy Clabby
Eugene Criqui
Jack Dempsey-1921 pose
Jack Dempsey-robe
Jack Dempsey-no robe
Johnny Dundee
Mike Dundee
George Eagle
Tiger Flowers
Luis Firpo
Fred Fulton
Mike Gibbons
Tommy Gibbons
Harry Greb undated, 1923 record
Willie Green
Pete Herman
Ace Hudkins
Ted Jamison
Silvio Jamito
Joe Jawson
Floyd Johnson
Rocky Kansas
Johnny Kilbane
Sam Langford
Benny Leonard
Joe Lynch
Eddie McGoorty
Al Mello
Billie Miske
Eddie O’Dowd
Willie Ritchie
Frankie Schoell
Morris Schlaifer
Dave Shade
Midget Smith
Lew Tendler
Carl Tremaine
Gene Tunney
Pancho Villa
Mickey Walker
Bermondsey Billy Wells
Charley White
Jimmy Wilde
Jess Willard
Kid Williams
Harry Wills undated 1923 record

$1,200, shipping on me.

If you want to see scans of the keys, please email me.

I also have a variety of singles from the set for filling in existing sets.