Question about 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig Cards

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Posted By: Josh Adams

I have been thinking about this for a while. Gehrig, like many others in the '33 Goudey set, have more than one card, i.e. Ruth (4), Ott (2), Critz (2), Hubbell (2) come to mind. I understand the reasons for duplicates at the end of the set.

My question is, how come Gehrig's two cards, #92 and #160, are the exact same image? Ruth has 4 different depictions, as does Ott, Critz, Hubbell and several others. What is the reason for this? Did the artist just get tired, and figured, what the hey, I'll just use Gehrig's batting stance twice?!

At any rate, this question has been on my mind for a while, just thought I'd ask.

Thanks,

Josh

Go Go White Sox
2005 World Series Champions!

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Posted By: dennis

foxx has 2 cards that look the same also. lots of guessing on my part... maybe they had another player planned but couldn't get his permission.
depression so did stuff on the cheap.
big star print same card 2x save $$.
kids won't notice/care.
diamond stars did the same thing with last few cards in set i've heard it was monitary as 240 were planned.
would love to hear more guesses as i wondered why also.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

With 1950s-70s Topps baseball cards, double prints often resulted where the card was put in more than one place on the sheet. This was often as another card was removed or there was an extra space and they needed something to go there. The number of different cards and the size of the sheet often don't match perfectly, meaning a card can be represented more than once on the sheet. If you look at a uncut Topps sheet, you will often a card represented more than once. Price guide folks often ask to see vintage uncut sheets so they can determine what's been double printed. So, the reason for using a second Gehrig or a second Foxx may have been to fill holes on the sheet. If they needed a duplicate on the sheet, I'm sure Goudey figured it best to dupe a superstar.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I ordinarily would say the same thing, David, however in these cases the cards were given separate card numbers in the set. Normally when cards are double-printed on a sheet, the backs are not changed.

Also, the Goudey company was notorious for innovative marketing ideas that encouraged people to buy more gum. For instance, as noted above they produced four different Ruth cards, two different Hubbells and Otts, etc. Obviously they never produced a Lajoie. You could also look at their extensive use of premiums as another example of this. With big stars of the day like Gehrig and Foxx, I can't imagine they would have double-printed THOSE players, as opposed to guys like Jack Russell and Eddie Morgan.

Goudey had a number of licensing issues and things of that nature during its history. There also are some other strange anomalies that happened during its history - such as the 1938 set, which produced the same set of cards twice. However, in the first series of 1938s, the card backs refer to a set of 288 cards, while in the second series, the card backs refer to a set of 312 (recognizing that the '38 set began with card #241, Charlie Gehringer, in an attempt to piggyback off the success of the 240-card '33 set). The set, however, never went beyond 288. With a lot of key stars of the day missing, but all 24 subjects in the set duplicated in the second series, I suspect there were originally plans to include players that never appeared in the set (no Hubbell, Ted Williams, Al Simmons, etc. ever appeared).

Anyway, based on all this, if I were to speculate as to why there are two different Gehrig and Foxx cards with the same pose, I would be inclined to think that it had something to do with players that didn't give permission to be included, or alternate artwork for Gehrig and Foxx that was never produced. After all, if there are two Joe Cronin and Lefty O'Doul cards with different art, why wouldn't there be two cards of monster stars like Gehrig or Foxx?

I'm not as familiar with the 33 set as the 38 set - are there any key stars of the day that don't appear in the set?

-Al

Edited to add the word "not"