This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/11/2020
As far back as the latter half of the 19th century and extending well into the 1900s, tobacco and candy companies were using trading cards as an added incentive to buy their product, the most famous of all being the T206 white border baseball series that debuted in 1909. But baseball wasn't the only subject of these inserts; flowers, actors, silk swatches, birds ... basically anything that might interest customers was material for an insert series. One of the most popular non-sports topics, especially during the World War era of 1914-1946, was airplanes and aviation. At about the same time that the Goudey Gum Company was releasing its iconic baseball card series, the National Chicle Company countered with a baseball card set of their own called Diamond Stars but went far beyond that, adding a football series and several non-sports issues, including the popular Sky Birds series devoted to famous pilots, aviation pioneers and various early 20th Century aircraft with a focus on World War I flying machines. Instead of pulling a Foxx, Grove, or Greenberg from the pack, subjects in the Sky Bird series include Manfred von Richthofen (A. K. A. "The Red Baron"), Charles Lindburgh, Ameria Earheart, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Orville Wright. Billed as a "series of 144", the Sky Bird series only made it to 108 cards and most are difficult to find in top-grade. On rare occasion, a surviving sealed pack of Sky Birds cards will surface, but the offered near-complete unopened wax box is a rarity that strays closer to the impossible. Originally hitting the five and dime shelves as a box of 100 one-cent packs, the featured lot has 87 perfectly intact pieces within their equally appealing wrappers. Lined up row by row, the bright red and blue coloring of the wax paper gives the appearance of a squadron of fighters launching from an aircraft carrier, a post World War I invention. The box that houses the packs, truly scarce in its own right, has definitely seen better days with missing pieces and seams that are split at the corners but has admirably served its purpose of keeping the packs close to the condition they originally came in almost 90 years ago. On top of the box is written "Rec 1933" that further confirms the year it was distributed. Also included is the original Sky Birds Escadrille Official Handbook and a letter from the National Chickle Company, both in their original envelopes, along with a Sky Birds wrapper. Pre-war packs like these are really a delight, but the winning bidder of this near-complete wax box will have something that likely no other collector can match!