Basketball Cards Unusual History
In part 1 of this article, we looked at how the earliest cards depicting basketball were printed as tobacco advertisements. The 1909 T51 Murad "College Sports" series, a 225-card set, featured US colleges and universities, including the first basketball card, depicting Williams College.
It wasn’t for another 20 years that a specific player was depicted on a card.
In 1933 Goudy Gum inserted pictures of popular athletes of the day in their ‘Sport Kings Gum’ distributed across the US. Most recognizable for the baseball icons - Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, the 48-card set contained athletes of numerous sports. This set, known as 1933 Sport Kings, contained the first 4 basketball players - Nat Holman, Ed Wachter, Joseph Lopchick and Eddie Burke.
Nat Holman and Ed Watcher were pioneering basketball legends who dominated the sport in the 1920s and 1930s. Both players were later inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The 1933 Sport Kings set is also notable for it’s inclusion of female sports legends.
The key cards in the set carry significant value, a PSA 8 Babe Ruth sold at auction earlier this year for $120,000 (and a signed version for a little shy $500,000). The HOF basketball cards typically command 4 figures in mid-grade condition, a far cry from Ruth but certainly not cheap either.
We’ll fast-forward another 15 years in part 3 to introduce the first ’official’ basketball set, 1948 Bowman.
Patrick is a lifelong sportscards and collectables fan. He's passionate about the Mets and Eagles (yes, really), pre-war tobacco and caramel cards, and writing. You can follow his often neglected account at @pg.sportscards