1934-1936 R327 Diamond Stars

[GeoPoto]

Charles S. "Buddy" Myer. Second baseman with the Washington Senators in 1925-1927 and 1929-1941. 2,131 hits and 38 home runs in 17 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .389. 2-time All-Star. 1935 AL Batting champion. 1928 AL Stolen Base leader. His best season was 1935 for Washington as he posted a .440 OBP with 115 runs scored and 100 RBI's in 719 plate appearances. He was involved in one of baseball's most violent brawls when he was spiked and possibly racially derided by the Yankees' Ben Chapman.

Here's Buddy's Diamond Stars with a back for each year:


Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Yoda]

I have never understood why DS are overlooked and undervalued. They are beautiful Art Deco design and perfect for the period when they were issued, I think the Foxx, Hornsby and Grove are wonderful cards.

[cgjackson222]

The Hank "Greenburg" error has been on my want list for a long time.

Here is Wes Ferrell, one of the greatest two-way players ever.

[Bill77]

This reminds me that I need to look for more of these.

[ldrunner27]

My first ever prewar purchase, 30 years ago.

[BioCRN]

Love the set, but I hate it only has 3 Cubs players.

Well, it has 4 if you count Stan Hack having 2 cards with the same front - #34 and #107. The difference is the stat line for 1934 on #34 and 1935 on #107.

At least 1 of the 3 players is a HOF'r.

[brianp-beme]

A few of my favorites from this fantastically great set...

A couple of Hall of Famer cards with interesting, get you right into the action perspectives (Ducky's card has some sort of photo session going on in the background):

distarsduckyandpoison 001 (536x640).jpgdistarsduckyandpoison 001 (535x640).jpg

A couple more action pose charmers with great stadium/cityscape backgrounds, these horizontally orientated:

diamondstarsostermueller 001 (640x537).jpgdistarstrosky 001 (640x545).jpg

A couple with conversations going on behind the player's backs:

distarsfour 001 (1024x624).jpg

A trio each having a whole mess of bats:

distarswithbats 001 (1280x524).jpg

And finally my favorite all-time artistic additions to a card, the Mellilo on the right (not my handiwork...I'm more into stick figures):

DiStarsMellilloversion002.jpg



Brian

[GasHouseGang]

Picked up off B/S/T some time ago.

[Beercan collector]

I need to resume my search for Frisch For my gang bangers set ,
($40-$90 or so)

[bbcard1]

Finished it up last year.Those high numbers were nasty.

I only have one, got this at a card show in Kenilworth, NJ just off the GSP in the early 80's

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

when he was spiked and possibly racially derided by the Yankees' Ben Chapman.

[brianp-beme]

Diamond Stars are such fun, artistic cards...here are three that depict motion in different ways. The Suhr card has the runner barreling down the widening perspective lines toward Gus, Myatt's mask is definitely headed swiftly toward the ground as is evidenced by those white jet trails, and Jordan has just got on the conveyor belt to first base after his follow through swing, based upon those cool red and yellow racing stripes in the background.

Brian

[Spike]

I touched on Goudey's use of Ruth and Gehrig in 1933 (both) 34 (Lou) 35 (Babe) via their shared sports agent, Christy Walsh, in an article for SABR.

sabrbaseballcards.blog/2023/05/11/1935-goudey-over-the-border-line/

Walsh handled endorsements for many sports stars and appears to have set up 1934 Goudey as a vehicle for Gehrig that paralleled his Wheaties endorsement and attempt to make Lou a movie star. Chuck Klein was also a client of Walsh, which might be why he appeared for one series that year. (Ruth still appeared in the 1934 World Wide Gum set using his 1933 card photo, so perhaps those deals focused on the USA more than Canada.) Klein's also missing from Diamond Stars, so perhaps Walsh asked for higher prices on all three than National Chicle cared to pay.

Big fan of the proof sheet of proposed DS cards that surfaced after bankruptcy and wish the company had survived long enough to print them.

[molenick]

Thanks for posting the proposed sheet of cards. While some of the issued cards had backgrounds that were just color fields (like Byrd and Traynor), these look like they were going in an even more abstract, Art Deco direction.

[brianp-beme]

Here is a 3-pack of smoking Diamond Stars smokestacks.

Brian

[brianp-beme]

And to tie in with the awesome proof sheet posted by Matthew, here are three that have blocks of color that were a precursor to some of the angular ones seen on the sheet (wouldn't it have been great if those 12 shown on the sheet had been issued as #97 to 108, instead of the repeat designs). It definitely looks like they were intending to go all-in on the deco backgrounds, and even introducing curlicues into the mix.

Brian

[Leon]

Thanks for sharing. That's pretty awesome.

Originally Posted by Spike

I touched on Goudey's use of Ruth and Gehrig in 1933 (both) 34 (Lou) 35 (Babe) via their shared sports agent, Christy Walsh, in an article for SABR.

sabrbaseballcards.blog/2023/05/11/1935-goudey-over-the-border-line/

Walsh handled endorsements for many sports stars and appears to have set up 1934 Goudey as a vehicle for Gehrig that paralleled his Wheaties endorsement and attempt to make Lou a movie star. Chuck Klein was also a client of Walsh, which might be why he appeared for one series that year. (Ruth still appeared in the 1934 World Wide Gum set using his 1933 card photo, so perhaps those deals focused on the USA more than Canada.) Klein's also missing from Diamond Stars, so perhaps Walsh asked for higher prices on all three than National Chicle cared to pay.

Big fan of the proof sheet of proposed DS cards that surfaced after bankruptcy and wish the company had survived long enough to print them.