1936 V355 World Wide Gum ?

dgheriani · #1 05-29-2025, 09:47 PM

Interestingly enough, the hockey card hobby originally considered the sister hockey set to be 1936 and eventually corrected the year to 1937.

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...orld-wide-gum/

BobbyBhockey · #2 05-29-2025, 10:29 PM

Regarding the V355 baseball card issue. Much like the hockey, the date was changed from 1936-37 to 1937-38 by reviewing the back of the card biographies. Noting many examples, it would appear the baseball would be a 1937 with the hockey following. Here is some information I wrote about the hockey:
1937-38 World Wide Gum � Ice Kings V356

This second and final set released in the later 1930�s from World Wide Gum, who had recently moved from their Montreal address where they produced the 1933-34 hockey card set, to now residing in Granby, Quebec about 50 miles away.

The information found in these biographies was the key, leading to the change in the date of this issue many years back from 1936-37 to 1937-38 by well-venerated hobby writer extraordinaire Stephen Laroche. The card that truly set the record straight was #135 Bill Stewart, who never played a game in the NHL but was a referee, although for the 1937-38 season, Steward became the head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks and not the manager as stated on the back of the card. Steward went on to lead his team to win the Stanley Cup this year.

An interesting note is that card #18 Howie Morenz was issued in this 1937-38 card issue when he had passed away in the previous season on March 8, 1937, although it is posthumously mentioned on the back of the card to honor this super star.

Spike · #3 05-29-2025, 11:12 PM

Nice work by those above via the TCDB site scans, which made it possible to sort out dates for what's otherwise a tough set to assemble by hand.

A few years back, I spent a while researching V355 and placed it in Goudey and WWG's larger context for the mid-1930s. The recent success of Montreal's IL team and Shag Shaughnessy's own move into the Presidency of the IL each seem like significant drivers of that new, Canadian-made baseball set, considering how many IL players it contains. (You can search ahead in my linked post for "V355" if you just care about that set and its release dates.)

https://www.number5typecollection.co...an-goudey.html

As to DiMaggio, his #51 card back refers to 1935 stats, so I feel safe calling it a 1936 release. Many of WWG's 1937 cards make it apparent from their writing style and statistics which year they came out, even if they "filled a gap" from 1936 by card number. This staggered release across 1936-37 looks a lot like the scattershot numerical order for Goudey's 1933 set. Considering the close relationship between Goudey and WWG, it possible the same creative team created each set and took a similar approach.

brianp-beme · #4 05-30-2025, 12:11 AM

Nice input all. Here are the additional three cards (including the Shaughnessy, noted by Matthew above) that I found after researching the team/league president designations on the backs of all 135 cards (minus a couple whose backs I could not find on the internet). These three indicate at least a later in 1936 issue date.

13. Chuck Klein - back designation Phillies. He was traded to Phillies on May 21, 1936.

70. Bill Hallahan - back designation Reds. He was purchased by Reds on May 31, 1936.

78. Frank Shaughnessy - back designation President International League. He was elected to become the International League president in October of 1936.

Brian

nolemmings · #5 06-02-2025, 11:37 AM

A little late getting back to this– I thought I had posted earlier. Matthew, real nice research in your link. Anyway, hoping to keep the topic on or near the front page, here is what I was thinking a week or so ago.

Bryan, thanks for the jump on the cardback research– I looked at several but was too lazy to write them down. I did see where Rabbit Maranville is identified as the Montreal manager and that the card states he was signed by them in October, 1936. Seems that most of the cards printed in late 1936 or early 1937 are for International League subjects, which was fertile territory for a Canadian producer and largely ignored in the earlier Goudey sets. I would agree that the set could very well be skip-numbered as seen in 1933 Goudey, although I’m not yet on board with the notion that sheet size was 5x9=45 cards. Maybe someone has a scan of a WWG Hockey sheet from 1937-38 (same set size). As I recall Goudey was really starting to slide as early as 1934 and its baseball offerings diminished each year, so it’s possible this was handed off to its Canadian counterpart as a cost-saving measure.

In some sense this WWG set reminds me of the Diamond Stars 1934-36 distribution, although that company had the decency to print copyright dates on the cards for us to figure out when they were issued, or at least which came first. We also know that National Chicle issued its Batter-Up cards over the three-year span 1934-36. Here several of the WWG cards have bio info that ends before 1936 and with no mention of what happened “last season”. It’s almost as if these were contemplated if not produced before 1936. One card that has stood out in my cursory review is Red Rolfe, listed as a Giants infielder. Rolfe of course was a Yankee, which makes this card a UER; however, I see that Red came up as shortstop in 1934 but the following year was the starting third baseman for the Bombers, playing 136 games there and only 17 at SS. Arguably he should have been known to WWG as a 3B well before 1936. Could it be that some of these cards are actually from 1935?

Spike · #6 06-02-2025, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nolemmings

In some sense this WWG set reminds me of the Diamond Stars 1934-36 distribution, although that company had the decency to print copyright dates on the cards for us to figure out when they were issued, or at least which came first. We also know that National Chicle issued its Batter-Up cards over the three-year span 1934-36. Here several of the WWG cards have bio info that ends before 1936 and with no mention of what happened �last season�. It�s almost as if these were contemplated if not produced before 1936. One card that has stood out in my cursory review is Red Rolfe, listed as a Giants infielder. Rolfe of course was a Yankee, which makes this card a UER; however, I see that Red came up as shortstop in 1934 but the following year was the starting third baseman for the Bombers, playing 136 games there and only 17 at SS. Arguably he should have been known to WWG as a 3B well before 1936. Could it be that some of these cards are actually from 1935?

Excellent thinking and I agree the Goudey and WWG design/production dating could be more complicated than it appears. Cards from the American 1935 Goudey baseball set, for example, lack any date or company name. There's a chance Goudey left those out in an attempt to avoid paying import taxes while distributing on either side of the US/Canada border.

While I do think the 1936-37 WWG set reached stores in those two years, it might've been created earlier and hard to know today which country handled its design. Layout work appears to be by hand, as #69 misspelled "chewing" on its back without any known correction. Putting Red Rolfe on the Giants seems like that kind of goof.

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