1933 Goudey Baseball Cards: The First Important Bubble Gum Cards

by Dean Hanley, Owner of Dean's Cards

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Set is recognized as the first important gum release. America was deep in the depression in 1933 and kids did not have many pennies to spend. For a product to get that penny, there had to be value. In these tough times, the Goudey Gum Company of Boston launched its revolutionary “Big League Gum” product.

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards includes 240 cards, and they were printed on thick cardboard stock, with bright colorful pictures, and they came with a nice big slab of gum. They were a great improvement over the smaller, thinner cardboard tobacco and candy cards that preceded them. It is important to remember that the 1933 Goudey baseball cards were the first color portraits of these stars that most people ever saw. The baseball card set represented a chance for kids to see their heroes up close and personal for the first time.

Click here to find the 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth at Dean's Cards.

The Goudey Gum Company tried hard to give the customers what they wanted. The greatest stars of the game had multiple cards. There are four different 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards, and the #144 Ruth was double printed. The 1933 Goudey baseball card set also has three cards of Joe Cronin and two cards each of Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott.

In 1933, while businesses were closing all across the United States and a quarter of the population was out of work because of the Great Depression, Goudey Gum more than quadrupled its sales over the previous year. The bubble gum baseball card was born.

Click here to find the 1933 Lou Gehrig baseball card at Dean's Cards.

Because of the financial success of the 1933 Goudey Gum baseball cards, three other U.S. bubble gum companies issued a baseball card set to keep pace with Goudey and to help sell their bubble gum. These included: a 32-card set by George C. Miller & Company, a 24-card set by the Delong Company ,and a 60-card set by the Orbit Gum Company. None of these sets were in the same league as the 1933 Goudey baseball card set, and none of the three ever issued another set of cards.  

A fifth competitor, the National Chicle Company produced a set of baseball cards the following year. Both National Chicle and Goudey would issue baseball cards sets from 1934 to 1937 – greatly reducing the sales from both companies.

Goudey sold $460,000 worth of baseball cards in 1933, but sold half as many cards ($220,000) in the following year of 1934. The declining trend continued again into 1935, when Goudey sold a measly $116,000 worth of baseball cards. By this time, Goudey was selling five times as much bubble without baseball cards as with them. Since a slab of bubble gum cost a penny, with or without the cards, it was much more profitable for the gum companies to exclude the cards.

You can read more about the 1933 Goudey baseball cards and the resulting bubble hum card war in my book: The Bubble Gum Card War.

Dean's Cards has a great selection of 1933 Goudey baseball cards.  And If you cannot afford the original Goudey cards, please check out the affordable 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Reprint set.

Buy 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards

Buy 1933 Goudey reprint baseball cards

Click here to sell your baseball cards.

Dean Hanley, founder and owner of DeansCards.com, is considered one of the foremost experts on the subject of vintage baseball cards, other sports and non-sports cards and has a regular column in the Sports Collectors Digest and publishes articles on his blog. Dean has also written two books on vintage sports cards: The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955 and Before There Was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards.

Inventory In-Depth: Best Qualifier Cards

Here at DeansCards.com, we have a lot of professionally graded cards, so we thought we would focus on a particularly cool segment of the graded card population: cards with qualifiers. Qualifiers are the letters that sometimes go after grade. Some of the more common qualifiers are MC (miscut), MK (marked), and OC (off-center). On average, a qualifier bumps price of the card down by two numbers. Therefore, if you found a PSA 7(OC), you would be paying the PSA 5 price. Qualifier cards are a great way to buy expensive cards at discount without sacrificing condition. The cards mentioned in this article are no exception.

The 1933 Goudey baseball card set features a total of four Babe Ruth cards and all four command a premium price. Card #53 is a close up of Ruth batting against a yellow background. It is probably one of Ruth's most popular cards from the 1930's. Our card grades a PSA 4(MK) because a previous owner wrote "BOS" on the back of the card and then erased the mistake, just as the Red Sox ownership surely wished they could erase the mistake of trading away Ruth. Aside from the mark on the back, the card is in remarkable condition.

Another favorite qualifier card in our inventory is the 1958 Topps #488 Hank Aaron All-Star card PSA 7(OC). The card commemorates one of Aaron's best years in baseball. In 1957, he won the NL MVP Award, the only one of his career, and the Braves went on to win the World Series. This card has incredibly clean corners, but the left/right centering is off by as much as 80/20 at the bottom.

The 1961 Topps #160 Whitey Ford card would normally be a fairly unremarkable card, except that our is a PSA 8 NM-MT(PD), meaning that it has a print defect. These cards are particularly hard to find in a PSA 8 or higher. Nearly 90% of all 1961 Topps #160 cards grade lower than PSA 8. But what is especially interesting about this card is that the "print defect" is very difficult to find. It is a small blue blur in the background of the card. It almost appears to be a spectator in the stadium behind Whitey Ford.

Buying a qualifier card is a great way to find a deal on a rare or expensive card. Please click here if you would like to see our inventory of professionally graded cards.

1933 Goudey Baseball Cards

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Set is recognized as the first important gum release.  America was deep in the depression in 1933 and kids did not have many pennies to spend.  For a product to get that penny, there had to be value.  The Goudey Gum Company of Boston launched its revolutionary “Big League Gum” product.

The 1933 Goudey Baseball Cards were printed on thick cardboard stock, with bright colorful pictures and came with a nice big slab of gum.  They were a great improvement over the smaller, thinner cardboard tobacco and candy cards that preceded them.  It is important to remember that 1933 Goudey cards were the first color portraits of these stars that most people ever saw.

The Goudey Gum Company tried hard to give the customers what they wanted.  The greatest stars of the game had multiple cards.  There are 4 different 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards and #144 Ruth was double printed.  The 1933 Goudey Baseball card set also has three cards of Joe Cronin and two cards each of Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott.

Dean's Cards has a great selection of 1933 Goudey baseball cards.  If you can not afford the original Goudey cards, please check out the 1933 Goudey Baseball Card Reprint set.