This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/10/2017
As baseball became increasingly popular over the first few decades of the 20th Century, the distribution of the game's sports cards transformed from being an advertising promotion to sell tobacco into one that helped increase sales of candy and gum, welcoming America's youth into a card collecting frenzy previously dominated by their fathers. When the Goudey Gum Company introduced their 1933 collection, an assemblage the size of which hadn't been seen since the legendary T206 series, it made complete sense that the chances of success would be greatly enhanced by including multiple Babe Ruth cards. After all, there were no written rules that a set can only contain one card of each player, and let's face it, next to Santa Claus, there was no bigger personality in all of American history that was adored by children like "The Sultan of Swat." Fast-forward over 80 years and the Goudey set is considered one of the great achievements of the hobby with each of the four Ruth cards having its own unique following, forever staging the debate for vintage card enthusiasts as to which is the best. Up for auction is one of the hobby's highest-graded examples of the famous full-body Babe Ruth issue from the celebrated 1933 Goudey Gum set. While the other three Goudey issues of Ruth offer a tremendous close-up shot with different background colors, card #144 is unique in presenting a full body image of the New York legend, supported by multiple colors that crescendo the longer you hold your gaze upon it. Surpassed by just 5 examples on record at PSA, the featured PSA 8 example boasts a pleasing mix of NM/MT to MINT features, highlighted by an image of the herculean whammer in his trademark follow-through and delivered concisely on a spotless canvas with overwhelmingly vivid color that has lost absolutely no depth over time. The centering is magnificently accurate, just a hair toward the bottom edge of dead-on perfect, and the endpoints, while clearly impressive enough to motivate PSA into a NM/MT assessment, actually come closer to NM/MT+ to MINT status in our opinion. The reverse appears near perfectly centered with an unusually bold print registration of the green text. On the whole, a top-notch example of one of the most famous Babe Ruth cards ever made in exclusive NM/MT condition.