This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/20/2013
Featured is a Beautiful high-grade Lucky Strike trolley car advertising sign of Lefty Grove, one of five signs issued in this classic series. Today, those Lucky Strike signs are universally regarded as among the most attractive and desirable baseball advertising display pieces ever produced. They are also among the very few baseball advertising display pieces dating from the 1920s which are in full color. Grove, who is identified in the advertisement as the "World's Leading Batter," is pictured in a pitching pose. To the right of his image is his endorsement: In their choice of ballplayers, the company certainly recruited the cream of the crop, as all five players featured in their advertisements were later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (Lloyd Waner, Paul Waner, Harry Heilmann, Lefty Grove, and Tony Lazzeri). In the late 1970s a hoard of about fifty "Lucky Strike" signs surfaced. Most top-grade examples found today, almost certainly including this very piece, originate from that single find. The sign (21 x 11 inches) displays a few small areas of light staining along the white border areas and a very tiny diagonal crease in the lower right corner. The colors remain flawlessly bright and the piece has an Excellent to Mint appearance. Mounted and framed to total dimensions of 29 x 19 inches.