1930 Whitmans Candy Tris Speaker

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I believe the 1930 Whitmans is a reference book, unrelated to candy. There was a Whitmans brand candy, but I believe it is of no relation to these cutouts.

If you cut out the little composite pictures on a book page and the other side has a big picture, say of Babe Ruth, you've made a puzzle. You can cut apart most anything flat and make a puzzle, from Topps singles to telephone book covers.

The same company grades Reach Cutouts, which are pictures cut from the pages of a Reach Baseball Guide. They also grade Spalding Cutouts, which were cut from a Spalding Baseball Guide. If you look at old Reach, Spalding or Lajoie annual guides, they are heavily illustrated with pictures of baseball players. The books have value, sometimes worth more than $100 or even $200, but a picture cut from page 145 has no honest value. The irony is the collector could have often purchased the entire book for the price he paid the picture scissors cut from one of the pages-- but he was duped into believing he was buying a trading card.

A key for the beginner is to 1) Find out who are the legitimate graders, not assuming all graders are alike, and 2) Buy a copy of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards by Krause Publications (Don Fluckinger Editor). This book the size of the San Francisco phone book lists and checklists 99.9 percent of known baseball cards, and if an eBay card is not listed in there don't buy it-- or at least ask around first. There is no 1930 Whitmans Puzzle Back Die-Cuts issue listed, nor 1928 Reach cutouts with partial article backs.