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Posted By: Anonymous

It's definitely true that they intended to piggyback on the success of the '33 set. The first card, Charlie Gehringer, is numbered #241 (the last card in the '33 set is #240). The backs of the cards look the same.

What's interesting is that the backs of the low numbered '38s state that the card is "one of a series of 288 Baseball Stars." The high numbered backs state that the card is "one of a series of 312 Baseball Stars." So at some point in the production run, they did intend to issue 24 additional cards, which could explain the absence of people like Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell from the first run. In my travels I've never seen hide nor hair of those additional cards, which is why I was tentatively excited about those wacky glued-on "proofs" that you pointed out on eBay a few weeks back. None of them sold, but I was kind of hoping someone would win one and shed a little more light on what they were.

At the same time, the two wrappers I own are obviously different from one another, in size and design, so I've always been under the impression that I had one copy of each.

There are so many mysteries with respect to Goudey and National Chicle from 1937 to 1940 that we could spend forever trying to sort them all out.

-Al