R313A Gold Medal Foods / Flour / Wheaties

[abothebear]

Tim Newcomb's Old Cardboard article http://www.oldcardboard.com/misc/issue06/issue06.asp ).

Set     Env.?  Scan?    Player          Team
R313A-1   y    y     Tommy Bridges        Detroit Tigers
R313A-1   y    y     Mickey Cochrane      Detroit Tigers
R313A-1   y    y     Dizzy Dean          St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     Paul Dean           St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     Frank Frisch         St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     Goose Goslin        Detroit Tigers
R313A-1   y    y     William Hallahan     St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     Fred Marberry        Detroit Tigers
R313A-1   y    y     Pepper Martin        St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     Joe Medwick          St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-1   y    y     William Rogell      Detroit Tigers
R313A-1   y    y     Jo-Jo White       Detroit Tigers

R313A-2   y    y     Earl Averill          Cleveland Indians
R313A-2   n    n     George Blaeholder    St. Louis Browns
R313A-2   n    y     Irving Burns        St. Louis Browns
R313A-2   n    y     Bruce Campbell      ?32-34 St. Louis Browns
R313A-2   n    n     Tex Carleton      St. Louis Cardinals
R313A-2   n    y     George Earnshaw    ?looks like As uniform (1933)
R313A-2   y    y     Odell Hale           Cleveland Indians
R313A-2   y    y     Mel Harder         Cleveland Indians
R313A-2   n    y     Chuck Klein        Chicago Cubs
R313A-2   n    n     Jack Knott          St. Louis Browns
R313A-2   n    y     Al Simmons         Chicago White Sox
R313A-2   y    y     Joe Vosmik          Cleveland Indians
R313A-2   n    n     Bill Walker           St. Louis Cardinals 33-36
R313A-2   y    y     Hal Trosky           Cleveland Indians

R313A-2   n    n     Fabian Gaffke         Des Moines Demons
R313A-2   n    y     Roy Hudson         Des Moines Demons
R313A-2   n    n     Albert Marchand         Des Moines Demons
R313A-2   n    n     Ossie Orwoll         Des Moines Demons

The "Env" column is marked with a "y" if a card has been found along with a Gold Medal Foods envelope.

So far, I have not been able to find a scan of Blaeholder or the alleged Faber.

George Earnshaw appears to be wearing an As uniform (his ’33 team), He played for the CWS in ’34 and part of ’35.

Hal Trosky was a rookie in ’33 (only playing in 11 games). His first full season was ’34.

Roy Hudson's signature includes "1934" and " Des Moines Demons." The photo is flanked by design elements not seen on other R313As except the other horizontal Des Moines card (Marchand).

The Al Simmons signature includes a salutation.

The Lipsett auction listing on OldJudge claims a Rogell card is part of a grouping of additional (to the 12 Cards/Tigers World Series cards) R313As. I haven’t seen anything about whether this is an additional Rogell card or if the auction mistakenly listed a standard Rogell as being part of an additional six. Only Klein and Simmons are pictured on the auction record. That same auction listing claims that the Vosmik was mailed as a postcard in 1935.

In another thread, a Dizzy Dean (R313A-1) is shown mailed as a postcard dated October 22 1934. A recent ebay listing (2/2021) shows a Paul Dean and Dizzy Dean used as postcards from Minnesota with postmarks of October 1943 (the 18th and the 25th).

The 2006 Beckett Guide lists 10 R313A-2s. According to the 2008 auction listing on Old Judge, Klein, Simmons, and Earnshaw, extend the checklist to 13 (possibly 14 if there is a 2nd Rogell (doubtful)) bringing the total to 25 (26 depending on the Rogell). The current Beckett website has these 25 listed. The PSA registry has 20 listed in their pop report (titled Gold Medal Flour), and 22 listed on their checklist. Their pop report has a Hal Trosky listed (not on their checklist nor the Beckett list). The Trotsky brings the total to 26 (27 if there is a 2nd Rogell).

In 2017, ebay auction introduced 10 new cards consistent with the physical characteristics and mailing method as the R313As, They were of the Indianapolis Indians minor league team and included the manager.

Several sources claim these were premiums for a Wheaties mail-in. I am curious about the primary source of this (I know Tim Newcomb wrote about these in issue #6 of Old Cardboard but I don’t have it and can’t find a copy).

According to another thread (Tim quoting his article), “four players from the Des Moines Demons and a Red Faber” are also known (via "an ultra-reliable source” to belong or be consistent with this issue. Red Faber (CWS) retired after the ’33 season.

All teams represented (except Earnshaw if he is indeed pictured with Philadelphia) are Midwest teams. Cincinnati is not represented.

Evidence supports the idea that the number typed on the front of the envelope was the number of cards included.

If anyone has information to add to this please do so. Scans of those without scans posted would be greatly appreciated.

Updated 11/6/2016: for formatting changes and with new information supplied from the thread.
Updated 1/5/2017: for new picture link addresses and grammar fixes.
Updated 8/26/2021: for new photo charts and added information.

[swarmee]

Nice work; thanks for the sleuthing.

[MikeGarcia]

Hey wow thanks for all the digging...the Jack Burns has a layer of nicotine protecting his gloss except where the thumbtacks were positioned

..is there a salutation on your image of Al Simmons ?....I've been needing that one but I always get outbid...

..

[abothebear]

Thanks, Mike!

Do you know if there are/were envelopes associated with any of those? It would be great to connect them directly to Gold Medal Foods.

The Simmons image does have the salutation. It is taken from the 2008 Lew Lipsett auction listing. http://www.oldjudge.com/archive/200811/sets/56/

George

[jeffmohler]

Hi George

The lot of four that recently sold on Ebay included the envelope. The envelope's return address was Gold Medal Foods. The stamp was a precancel from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The addressee was to a person in Ohio, which makes sense when you consider that the four cards were Indians. I think it is safe to attribute this issue to Gold Medal Foods. Whether they were a Wheaties premum or not, I don't know.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1934-Gold-Me...p2047675.l2557

[abothebear]

Yes, thank you, Jeffrey. I should note that in the summary.

I was wondering about the 3 additional ones that Mike posted, especially the minor leaguer (given the oddity of its design and that it isn't a major league player).

[jeffmohler]

For the record here are my four cards. I picked them up on Ebay about 4 years ago as part of a group of wide pens. There was actually a thread on this forum at the time wondering why a group of eight ungraded wide pens went for $500.00! A couple people thought it was crazy.

I think Rhett Yeakley said he was the underbidder. He and I were the only ones who saw the listing and recognized it for what it was. It isn't often I have more knowledge than most of the posters on the Board

What I think is interesting is that I believe the ones I bought were probably an original grouping. The one on Ebay appeared to be as well. Each lot included four cards. I wonder if that was a "maximum" number that would be sent out in one envelope? There really isn't enough evidence one way or another I guess.

I think this is a fascinating subset and often search Ebay for these cards, but I missed the most recent group.

[BigBeerGut]

Neat black&whites! Thanks for posting I never seen R313.