R309-2 Scarcity reasons?

[Leon]

That's a really good reference. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Spike

The players and teams who appear in R309-2 say something about when Goudey released them and perhaps why they prove hard to find today. It starts with the company's changing approach to premiums.

1933 Big League Gum (baseball): Mail-in R309-1 baseball photo premiums (50 wrappers per large, thick stock photo). See that wrapper from Nov 1933 with all four.

1933-34 Sport Kings Gum (multi-sport): Two promos for this set. First, they offered "Varsity Football" game cards as an in-store exchange. See that "Mr. Retailer" instruction sheet and example card back. Second, they tried to offered eight mail-in photos, yet scuttled the program before many reached collectors. Just a few examples survive today and you can search R340 on Net54 for those scans. After the R340 promo failed to meet Goudey's goals, I think kids received remaining stock of R309-1 instead of those Sport Kings premiums. See Sport Kings wrapper with the eight planned photos.

1934 Big League Gum (baseball): Goudey introduced their Knot Hole League collecting club of mail-in offers. See the "FREE PREMIUMS" catalog, where R309-1 photos are now just 25 wrappers. I suspect handling the logistics of a mail-in club became too expensive for Goudey's taste, so they decided to try other approaches once existing stock of 1933-34 promos were exhausted.

1935 Big League Gum (baseball): This year's wrappers offer in-store exchanges (10 subjects announced by this point) and continued a mail-in version of the Knot Hole League. See the "wrappers have double value" window display. Its Oscar Melillo premium shows him _after_ a late May trade to Boston, so I think R309-2 premiums hit stores in June or July. Goudey added five more players to the ten listed in that display: Hank Greenberg, Elden Auker, Mickey Cochrane, Walker/Fox/Goslin, and Schoolboy Rowe. All five cards feature Detroit Tigers, who won the 1935 World Series, so there's an excellent chance those five were released _after_ the 1935 season, making them tougher to find.

By 1936, Goudey changed over to cheaper, black-and-white, in-store R314 baseball premiums that they expanded over time.

In short, Goudey still had one foot in each promotional approach in 1935 as they tested what customers would go for throughout the season. That makes R309-2 relatively scarce by comparison to R314, since Goudey committed in 1936 to using in-store exchanges as their main promotion.