W553 Checklist or is it Leader Novelty?

[iggyman]

As many of you know, a few years back I purchased a scrapbook on eBay that had three W553 uncut strips. The cards were as follows:

STRIP #001: Fritch, Goslin, O'Doul, Simmons
STRIP #002: Cochrane, Grove, Grimes, Hornsby
STRIP #003: Gehrig, Ruth

Picture2 1657.jpg
W553RuthGehrig.jpg

If I could give a very brief history lesson for the newbies in the audience; W553's came in uncut strips of 'FIVE" cards or as recent evidence indicates they also came in individual cards packaged with gum.

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/...2009/1535.html

All over the internet is the assumed W553 checklist:

# 1 Lu Blue - 1929 (W553)
# 2 Mickey Cochrane - 1929 (W553)
# 3 Jimmie Foxx - 1929 (W553)
# 4 Frankie Frisch - 1929 (W553)
# 5 Lou Gehrig - 1929 (W553)
# 6 Goose Goslin - 1929 (W553)
# 7 Burleigh Grimes - 1929 (W553)
# 8 Lefty Grove - 1929 (W553)
# 9 Rogers Hornsby - 1929 (W553)
# 10 Rabbit Maranville - 1929 (W553)
# 11 Bing Miller - 1929 (W553)
# 12 Lefty O'Doul - 1929 (W553)
# 13 Babe Ruth - 1929 (W553)
# 14 Al Simmons - 1929 (W553)
# 15 Pie Traynor - 1929 (W553)

My strip had ten of the cards in the checklist. The missing cards were:

Lu Blue
Jimmy Foxx
Rabbit Maranville
Bing Miller,
Traynor.

I've always wondered why the scrapbook I purchased only had ten cards? The bottom card of each four card strip had been cut and discarded and the bottom and perhaps top cards of the Gehrig/Ruth strip had also been discarded. My assumption has always been that the discarded cards were in all probability duplicates. The scrapbook had plenty of baseball newspaper articles plus a few 1933 Goudey cards pasted through-out but no other W553's.

After searching the far reaches of the internet and talking to a handful of advanced collectors. I'm convinced that the five missing W553 cards do not exist. In fact, I believe the five missing cards which do not belong on the checklist were actually Leader Novelty cards that were mislabeled. You can see some similarities (these are not my cards):

leadnovmaranville.jpg


I realize my theory has a generous amount of speculation, and perhaps a large cache of W553's is sitting in a barn right now waiting to be discovered, but after endlessly chasing those five missing cards I'm throwing down the gauntlet. Can anybody in this circle of collectors prove me wrong (or right)???

Lovely Day...

[shammus]

I THINK I remember one collector who owned a Foxx that I've chatted with at length about this set before. I'll let him come forward though if he notices this thread....

[Leon]

Nice analysis Iggy. As a type collector I haven't kept up with the known players in W553. In Burdick's last ACC which he updated (1960), he mentions 10 were seen. In the 2011 SCD I see 15 listed as W553 but in the new 2012 shortened edition, I don't see them listed at all? I would be curious how/when Bob added the other 5 cards? I only have Ruth in W553 but have these below in Leader Theater....I will try to search my hobby library for more answers. BTW, you really should have put "T206" and "autograph" in the title of this thread so more people would look at it .

[brianp-beme]

Iggy, and all...what is the official checklist for the Leader Novelty cards? Are all five of the 'questionable existence' W553's (Blue, Foxx, Maranville, Miller and Traynor) available as Leader cards? The Maranville and Traynor Leader cards have been shown on this thread, but how about the other three?

By the way, I am the guy that ended up with the Leader Root card (I checked back on a previous Leader thread started by Iggy).

Brian

[iggyman]

Brian,

I'm not sure a definitive Leader Novelty checklist exist. According to Frank Ward's website..................." there was said to be 33 (Leader Novelty) cards in the Copeland group, but only 20 different have been cataloged to date". As per Frank Ward's own words the auction that he referenced is a 1991 Sotheby's Copeland Collection Auction (lot #707).

Of the "five" W553 cards that I am currently questioning the existence off. I have seen Leader Novelty cards of Jimmy Foxx, Bing Miller, and obviously the Maranville and Traynor pictured in this thread. I have not seen a Leader Novelty Lu Blue.

Glad to see the Leader Novelty Root card found a good home. I always wondered where it ended-up. I remember having a snipe on it, but my sonar was really focus on picking-up the hall of famers. I don't know if we will ever see Leader Novelty cards on eBay again, but just in case I already have my snipe ready.

Lovely Day...

[iggyman]

Leon,

Thank you for the input, that is interesting........so Burdick had the checklist at ten. Smart guy, I think he knew a thing or two about this hobby of ours. I've been reading past Net54 threads (slow day here at the Richie Rich mansion), if you read this old thread: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=w553 . An interesting observation by Brett Domue don't you think............he actually questions whether the W553 checklist should be updated and some cards moved to the Leader Novelty checklist. I wonder where I got my idea. By the way, I know it's Friday and Net54ers are getting ready to hit the disco, but I'm going to keep bumping this thread until I see a W553 Jimmy Foxx.

By the way, I'm always amazed by that miscut Joe Judge card. So were they horizontal or vertical? The world will never know......

Lovely Day...

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice analysis Iggy. As a type collector I haven't kept up with the known players in W553. In Burdick's last ACC which he updated (1960), he mentions 10 were seen. In the 2011 SCD I see 15 listed as W553 but in the new 2012 shortened edition, I don't see them listed at all? I would be curious how/when Bob added the other 5 cards? I only have Ruth in W553 but have these below in Leader Theater....I will try to search my hobby library for more answers. BTW, you really should have put "T206" and "autograph" in the title of this thread so more people would look at it .

[leftygrove10]

I got my Leader Novelty Grove card from Bob Bostoff back in the late 1990's (I believe). He had a whole bunch of them for sale in the SCD at that time. He didn't have them labeled as Leader Novelty. They were labeled as "Small R316 cards", or something like that. I believe Bob's business name was Empire Sports. If any of you have some SCD magazine's sitting around from the late 1990's, you could probably cross reference his "sale list" to the checklist of Leader Novelty cards.

Here is my Grove Leader Novelty card.... Shown next to one of my W553 Grove cards...

[mike_v]

Hi all, I've been trying to learn more about some W553s that I inherited. Glad I stumbled across this thread.

FWIW, my collection has 16 cards (from a blue strip and a white strip), and the inventory is consistent with Iggy's theory that Blue/Foxx/Maranville/Miller/Traynor W553s don't exist.

I've scanned the cards and also made a group scan arranged vertically in the same order as Iggy's strips:
http://mikeandlinda.smugmug.com/Othe...8J8HD&lb=1&s=O
The blank row near the bottom is for the missing Gehrigs-- maybe my Grandpa stuck them in his bicycle tires? or hated the Yankees??

Iggy, I'm one of the newbies in the audience, so could you continue the history lesson and explain why it's commonly accepted that W553s came in strips of *five*, as opposed to strips of *ten* that might have been more commonly/conveniently distributed after being cut into two strips of 5 (or 4)?

Clearly, your strips of 4 don't jibe with the strip-of-5 story. Also, if you look at my "reconstructed strips" scan, the way the torn cards match up like a jigsaw puzzle makes me think that these may have originally been a strip of 10:
* The tops of the Frisches and bottom of the Ruth are the only cards that look machine-cut. (Bottom of white-Frisch and top of Hornsby are straight, but maybe they were trimmed after being torn since you can see the cut lines?)
* The tear-matches between Simmons-and-Cochrane and Cochrane-and-Grove especially make it seem that these weren't just strips of 5 (or 4). Granted, with the missing Gehrigs and trimmed Hornsby, it's far from clear that these were strips of ten. But hopefully there are some clues in here to add to the existing collective knowledge about these cards.

Iggy, how do your strips match up as a strip of 10? I could be fooling myself, but looks like the top of the Frisch and bottom of Ruth are straight, while the other edges are slightly diagonal and might match up?

Cheers,
Mike

PS, Individual cards can be seen in the gallery:
http://mikeandlinda.smugmug.com/Othe...2264&k=NJ8J8HD