1932 Sanella Babe Ruth - Wisdom Wanted

[Yoda]

I sometimes wonder how all these pre-war German cards, obviously made of paper, survived the allied fire bombing of WWII and somehow migrated back to the States. Returning GI's who picked them up while part of the occupying force, maybe? I know the notorious Alan Hager auctioned off a small cache of Sanellas about 20 years ago and hyped them beyond belief. Because of his involvement and later retreat from the industry, I think the cards became a bit tainted and prices really never recovered.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Interesting question. There are a decent amount of Bulgaria Sport cards around but not a ton. I had to actually contact a collector in Germany to put together the checklist for PSA's Set Registry composite for the set so it has flown pretty well under the radar. For the longest time I had the only set even started, I think there are three of us now.

[seanofjapan]

It was really just a few cities that were subject to intense fire bombing during the war, so most of them probably survived (same with the 1929 Shonen Club in Japan).

With the Shonen Clubs (I assume the Sanellas are the same) they are probably easier to find in the US than they are in their country of origin these days. Not sure if that is the result of one person buying them all up at once and shipping them over, or just a steady drift of them one by one over the years as American collectors came across them. On Ebay there are usually 2-3 copies available at any given time and they show up in auction houses too, but on Yahoo Auctions Japan (Japan`s version of Ebay) they only pop up for sale infrequently.