Page | 1 “He Wasn't a Baseball Player. He Was a Worldwide Celebrity, An
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Cael McClanahan | August 6, 2020 | History Through Cards “He wasn't a baseball player. He was a worldwide celebrity, an international star, the likes of which baseball has never seen since.” - Ernie Harwell on Babe Ruth The 1933 Goudey set is one of the most popular and widely collected card issues to come out of the Great Depression. Its name alone congers up the likes of Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and “Dizzy” Dean – It’s the set that turned many kids of the Great Depression into lifelong collectors and is recognized as one of the top 3 sets that defined the 20th Century. One such young collector, Elwood Scharf, would one day go on to become a pioneer in the in the 1960’s and 70’s Hobby and had vivid recollections of the set when he wrote about it in 1970 – “Pennies were a bit scarce in those days and we couldn’t afford to waste them on cards we already had. A single card and a slab of gum sold for a penny. They were packed in a semi-transparent wrapper, and by holding this wrapper tight, we could make out the name of the player on the face of the card. Of course, many stores didn’t go for this nonsense, but we would hang around peering through the glass candy counter, pennies in hand, until the storekeeper would relent and place the box of cards on the countertop. Eager hands would then go through the packs of cards selecting only those that were needed. This would be accompanied by cries of “who needs a Jimmy Foxx” or who “needs a KiKi Cuyler” as choice cards were discovered. This lack of duplicates didn’t eliminate trading, but it did make each trade serious business”.1 Scharf’s insights into this set may have been lost on most collectors by the time I first saw my first one in my early 20’s, but he fills in some pretty interesting gaps as one of the leading researchers of the set at that time. If you look closely, some of the backs of Many collectors consider the 1933 Goudey set on par with the 1909-11 these cards will look like they’ve blead through. This was caused when the sheets T206 and 1952 Topps sets as far as historical significance is concerned. I were stacked on top of each other before couldn’t agree more and as you read on; you’ll find that this is really an completely drying. This doesn't affect the amazing set that has a little bit of something to offer for every collector. grade or value of the card. Many collectors even believe that seeing it gives the card a Most of the 240 2-3/8 x 2-7/8 cardboard gems are affordable for the legitimacy of authentication for high end average collector and boast an impressive list of 33 Hall of Famers and A- cards such as Ruth and Gehrig. List stars with several players appearing on multiple cards –most notably Page | 1 Babe Ruth (4), Mel Ott (3), Henie Manush (3), Joe Cronin (3), Hal Schumacher (2), Rogers Hornsby (2), Carl Hubbell (2), Jimmie Foxx (2), and Lou Gehrig (2). There are also 15 players representing the International League, American Association, Southern Association and Pacific Coast League where they’re found on two sheets numbering 85 to #90 and #174 to #177. The Goudey Gum Company (situated at 113 Broad St., Boston from 1904-1924, then at 52 Everett St, Allston, MA) was founded in December of 1904 and incorporated by a representative of Beeman’s Pepsin Gum; Enos Gordon Goudey (1863-1946) on September 18, 1918 with a capitol of $60,000. The following month, his company put in for a patent for “Oh-Boy Gum”, their leading chewing gum brand throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. The other two chewing gum brands associated with this set, “Indian Gum” and “Big League Gum” were patented in April and May of 1933 and issued specifically with these cards as collectors hadn’t seen anything on this scale since the American Tobacco Company in 1909. I’m getting a head of myself a bit here because to understand how this set became a legend we need to first understand how it came to be... “Oh Boy Gum” was heavily promoted in the As a card collector, I have a keen interest in the papers starting around 1925. Prior to this, the history surrounding the cards and players I collect; company pushed “Super Lemolyme” and and this set really takes you back to The Great “chocolate” and by the time this set was Depression. My grandmother grew up in Iowa and issued, they promoted “Indian” and “Big was particularly hard hit by it, never saying more than League” gum. “oh it was just terrible” or “Save your pennies”, but I can recall one instance where she witnessed Rabbit Drives saying they were just awful. My grandfather vividly recalled dust storms and clouds of locusts blocking out the sun. On the other hand, she loved Baseball, though could never understand my passion for collecting vintage cards – she would often recall going to Sportsman Park in St. Louis and seeing the 1934 World Series and rattled off the names of her favorite players like it was yesterday –The Dean Boys, Pepper Martin, Wild Bill Hallinan and Bill DeLancey who was her favorite; Ducky Medwick, she said, no one called him that to his face and could be at times be very temperamental. An interesting thing occurs when looking at the cards of the era – they’re bright, full color lithographs in a bleak and uncertain time made famous in John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. They’re almost meant to take you to another place, to day dream, just for a moment in which they allow the collector an escape from the realities of the ‘Dirty Thirties” - as I’m sure all cards can do - but they leave the collector of today imagining what that moment in time was like when the player’s photograph was taken. Now compare that to the rich and vibrant decade of the Roaring 20’s, where the vibrancy of tobacco card collector F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gadsby (1925) may have been Page | 2 probably truer to life, but certainly not reflected in the black and white Baseball Cards of the era. This story goes back much further… Dr. Edward E. Beeman (1839-1906), a Cleveland Physician, perhaps wasn't the greatest of bedside doctors as he was more interested in research then seeing his patients. What he was looking for was a cure for digestive issues when his secretary suggested he add pepsin with chicle. Pepsin is an extract made from the stomachs of pigs (oh, gross!) to help aid in digestion. In 1883 he founded the Beeman Chemical Co. which incorporated in 1890 so his gum could be produced in greater quantities and widely distributed. Over the next decade Beeman’s sales were averaging $400,000 annually and the directors decided to sell the company to the American Chicle Company of Chicago. Beeman’s gum was the gum of choice of pilots, known as “the lucky gum” for the very same qualities that made it famous with people who like to keep their feet on the ground (I have a hard time with that one), and it has appeared in several movies including Disney’s 1991 cult classic The Rocketeer and The Right Stuff (1983). The production of Beeman’s Pepsin Gum ceased continuous operation in 1978, though it is still produced every few years by Cadbury Adams along with other classic brands such as Black Jack and Clove Gum and other popular brands like Beech Nut Gum haven’t been seen since the days of the Tasmanian Tiger. Enter Enos Gordon Goudey. He came from a family of fisherman who originally hailed from Marblehead, Massachusetts and whose direct descendant was William Bradford, an original member of the Mayflower and first Governor of Plymouth Colony. So, when he emigrated from Nova Scotia in 1881 to America, the natural choice for him would have been to settle in New England. From there, he quickly got a job working for Jordan Marsh in Boston. He got his sales chops from the Carleton Laboratory selling chewing gum and he soon became Beeman’s first New England sales rep. Beeman’s was merged into the Chicle Trust in 1899 (as in The American Chicle Co. of Adam’s Gum fame) where their namesake chewing gum was made famous by Chuck Yeager during his historic 1947 Bell X-1 supersonic flight. Enos Gordon Goudey, the founder Goudey continued with that company in some capacity well of the company retired in 1928 and into 1919 as a Board member when not too long after he soon the Board of Directors appointed Walter Leary as Treasurer, replacing set up a commission based business selling candy and gum Harold C. Delong the following year. (1904), and while it wasn't stated in his Irish Sports Page, this Leary is listed as President when is most likely the very beginning of The Goudey Gum these cards were issued. Company. It’s been a long-held claim that both Goudey and Page | 3 Harold C. DeLong, the company’s longtime treasurer were responsible for creating this set. I’m actually hesitant to say this was 100% accurate but there is a kernel of truth to every story based on their 1934 set.