Neat Little Find: New pre-WW2 Southern League "Set"

[rhettyeakley]

I know we have had the discussion many times as to what constitutes a "card" and there are some things that blur that line, then there are things that are so far beyond that blurred line but we still collect them nonetheless... this is one of those "sets"

Anyways, during the 1936 baseball season there were several different newspapers across the country that made their own versions of the "Sport Stamp" series. Among those making them were the Boston American, Detroit Times, and the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. From what I have seen these all were "sets" of major leaguers.

I recently came across a group of these "Sport-Stamp's" from a new publication, the "Atlanta-Georgian American". What makes these even more interesting (at least to me) is that they do not feature major leaguers but minor leaguers from the Southern Association.

Included in the find were 54 different players from all the teams of the 1936 Southern League. Unfortunately, no HOF pre-Rookies in the group as there were surprising few future stars playing in the league that year. The best card is undoubtedly that of a 21 year old Johnny Vander Meer before going on to throw his back-to-back no-hitters for Cincinnati. Not the most exciting find in the world but things like this keep it exciting...

Here is a sample of the different "cards"...

[packs]

Really cool Vander Meer.

[matthew]

Is that the same Richards that was a manager in the 60s?

[DixieBaseball]

Rhett - Thanks for sharing ! Certainly never seen a newspaper stamp!

[tjb1952tjb]

Yes, that's the same Paul Richards...........(my '52 Bowman):

[buymycards]

Rhett, those are really nice. I love the old minor league issues. Do you know how these were issued? Did they put all of the stamps in one paper, or did they put one or two players per day in each paper over a period of time? Were these from a special insert in the paper or were they in the regular sports section?

Thanks for showing them.

Rick

[Leon]

Thanks for showing those Rhett. I would love to pick up a single specimen to go with my group if you want to ever let one go. It's neat that we are still finding new sets like these that haven't come to light after all of these years until now. These type stamps were put out by quite a few papers in 1936. I just found the Sporting News ones a year or two ago and have not seen any others from that set yet.

[Bob Lemke]

We were just making some real progress on cataloging the various "Sports Stamps" newspaper issues when I left the Standard Catalog. It would have been great to have the information on the Southern Association issue.

[martindl]

Very cool. I have a scapebook from 1937 with 80+ Detroit Times sports stamps. A little over a third of them are baseball. Sadly no minor leaguers.

[rhettyeakley]

Just figured I'd bump this once and add a checklist of the 54 cards I found, just in case anyone is cataloging anything...

The following were in the collection...
Charlie Ahern (Nashville)
Junie Barnes (Nashville)
William Beckman (Knoxville)
Babe Benning (Memphis)
Al Browne (Atlanta)
Charlie Burgess (Little Rock)
Neil Caldwell (Knoxville)
Solly Carter (Memphis)
Ed Cihocki (Birmingham)
Raymond Coombs (Birmingham)
Tony Cotelle (Memphis)
Lindsey Deal (Little Rock)
Clem Dreiseward (Memphis)
Bill Duke (Memphis)
Bob Durham (Atlanta)
Joseph Dwyer (Nashville)
George Fleming (New Orleans)
Jim Galvin (Atlanta)
Peck Hamel (Atlanta)
Dave Harris (Atlanta)
Fred Hofmann (Memphis)
Nig Lipscomb (Atlanta)
Al Marquardt (Memphis)
Andy Messenger (Chattanooga)
Larry Miller (Atlanta)
Leon Moon (Knoxville)
Edward Morgan (New Orleans)
Ray Mueller (Knoxville)
Leo Nonnenkamp (Little Rock)
James Outlaw (Nashville)
Joe Palmisano (Birmingham)
Frank Peticolas (Chattanooga)
Jim Powell (Memphis)
Andy Reese (Memphis)
Cecil Rhodes (Knoxville)
Paul Richards (Atlanta)
Lance Richbourg (Nashville)
Eddie Rose (New Orleans)
Bill Ruble (Knoxville)
Bill Schmidt (Atlanta)
Kelley Scott (Nashville)
Byron Speece (Nashville)
Douglas Taitt (Nashville)
Harry Taylor (Chattanooga)
Bill Thomas (New Orleans)
Clay Touchstone (Memphis)
Coker Triplett (Nashville)
John Tyler (Knoxville)
John Vander Meer (Nashville)
Earl Webb (Knoxville)
Ralph West (Atlanta)
Al Williams (Atlanta)
Jesse Woodward (Birmingham)
William Zuber (New Orleans)

[RCMcKenzie]

If you want to sell any of those I'd be interested in the New Orleans cards...

Looks like you have a Van der Meer rookie there, too. Great find.