The 1933-35 card explosion

[skelly423]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I haven't seen the answer. Does anybody know why there was such an explosion new card issues across the board starting in 1933?

Off the top of my head, baseball had new issues for US Caramel, Delong, Goudey, Diamond Stars, Tattoo Orbit, Sport Kings. Hockey had OPC, Hamilton Gum, Ice Kings, Canadian Gum, Football had National Chicle, and there are a wide variety of prominent non-sport issues from the same time period.

Was there a triggering event that set off the card boom in the early 1930s. I think the corresponding sharp decline can probably be chalked up to the Great Depression, but I find it fascinating that so many new cards were produced spontaneously in such a short window.

[EddieP]

This has to do with the arts but I also think it pertains to baseball cards ( since its the artists that help create them):

From encycledia.com:
“ Like nearly everyone else, artists, writers, and musicians suffered in the economic climate of the Depression. At such a time of crisis there was a sense that America had lost its way and that the country lacked a distinctive culture of its own. In an effort to boost national pride while helping to provide some jobs to help Americans through the Depression, the government's Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal political programs, supported regional artistic activity by giving federal funding to the arts. In many cases this meant that artists could continue to get paid to work when the market for their goods disappeared. The idea was not only to develop a modern American culture but also to rediscover one that was being lost. Artists, writers, filmmakers, and musicians traveled around the country documenting and …”

[skelly423]

Thanks for sharing this tidbit, I had never heard of this program before

[Carter08]

Reading Mint Condition sent to me by Snapolit but haven’t gotten to that chapter yet!