This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/15/2017
Graded NM 84(7) by SGC. Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp. The featured collectible is considered to be Jackie Robinson's rookie card and was issued by the Leaf Gum Company of Chicago in 1948. On the combined Population Reports of the two leading authentication companies in our hobby, PSA and SGC there has been 1286 copies of this card that have been graded and a mere 7.5% of all graded copies have been graded in advance of the offered copy. Four outstanding high end NM corners that at one point may have passed for a grade superior to the current assessment (the offered card was just recently graded by SGC) The centering is precise with a nice white borders that define the edge from the canary yellow interior. The colors are a smash hit with a deep well imaged blue hat and deep dark skin tones that set this offering apart from other examples. The surface is a smooth application of color that offers a fully saturated image with no disturbances. The reverse is a well printed deep black bio set upon a sullen gray stock with nary an interference encountered. A tremendous example of this exceptionally important card offered in outstanding and alluring high end NM or better condition.