What's interesting about the R303s is that the backs refer to a gum brand called "Diamond Stars Gum." As you may know, Goudey purchased the assets of the defunct National Chicle company in 1937, and National Chicle was the owner of the "Diamond Stars" brand.
There are very few examples of Goudey actually USING any of the Chicle assets that they purchased, but the R303s are one of them. In addition to the "Diamond Stars Gum" brand name (a "Diamond Stars Gum" wrapper was unearthed a few years ago), you'll notice that the backs borrow artwork from the 1937 Rabbit Maranville baseball tip booklets that were included in the second series packs of Batter Up cards. It's cool that they re-used the artwork from the Maranville set, as the Maranville booklets are pretty awesome.
The Diamond Stars Gum wrapper that I saw referred to the gum being manufactured by Goudey, which would mean it was available post-1937. Since Goudey made the Heads-Up cards (and gum) in 1938, and since it probably would have been tough to ramp up production of a new brand of gum in just one year, I suspect that the Diamond Stars Gum came out in 1939, and the R303s were premiums that were given away with purchases of the gum.
If anyone has a Diamond Stars gum box, I'd sure love to see what it looked like.
-Al
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