This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/27/2010
The 1936 World Wide Gum issue presents 135 major leaguers, coaches, and managers in simple black and white halftone images on cards that are virtually identical in stock and dimension to the famous 1933 and 1934 Goudey issues. And no wonder; as most collectors know, World Wide Gum is Goudey's Canadian imprint. The World Wide Gum backs, with text in both English and French, are similar to other Goudey issues, but the fronts are unusually distinct, composed of cheaply reproduced images instead of Goudey's customarily colorful artwork. Many collectors therefore consider them crude, and rightly so, but too many fail to see the significance of their simple, i.e., inexpensive, design. The 1936 World Wide Gum issue is one of the famed Goudey company's last real considerable baseball card efforts before succumbing to the pressures of the Great Depression and to the competition arising from Warren Bowman's non-sport themed cards over at Gum, Inc. Despite its necessarily simple halftone print design, however, the '36 World Wide set nevertheless manages to deliver some of the most visually enchanting and cherished issues of the entire late 30s era, including the ever elusive Joe DiMaggio RC, a famously dimpled Lou Gehrig issue--which some collectors recognize as Lou's most desirable baseball card--and a similarly intimate if not somewhat menacing Dizzy Dean card, offered here in outstanding EX/MT 6 condition from PSA. A sharp NM to even NM/MT perimeter encompasses an utterly spectacular image for the issue, differentiated from every other 1936 World Wide Gum card offered in this auction by its undeniably bold and near thoroughly saturated blank ink background silhouetting Diz's hulking head. Indeed, the card would be a shoe-in for NM 7 status and even a strong contender for NM/MT 8 were it more accurately centered, which is really saying something, since only 2 others have ever graded higher, both in the NM 7 tier, making this one of the hobby's finest known copies of arguably the perfect Dizzy Dean card.