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Fast Facts
Year(s) Issued: 1922
Set Designation: W503
Number Cards: 64
Card Size: 1-5/8" x 2-3/8"
Common Card Value (Good Condition): $125
Scarcity Rating: (1 to 10, 10 scarcest): 10
W503 Strip Card Set
Keys For Collectors
W503 Strip Cards - About As Hard To Find As They Come
I've handled and researched many types of pre-war strip cards and early caramel and gum cards.
But I've never had any W503 cards in my possession.
One of the reasons, based on my research is the limited distribution.
Lew Lipset determined that the cards were only issued in three regions: New York, St Louis and the San Francisco Bay area.
If you do enough digging on the baseball card forums, you'll find collectors showcasing some of their W503 cards.
My envy runs DEEP.
There is some surprise that PSA has graded only 17, and SGC has graded 130 cards, although some old time vintage collectors have preferred SGC to PSA.
Even still that puts the graded population at about 2 cards for each issue in the set.
Ungraded copies can be found on eBay, but usually the selection is quite limited. Ungraded commons are going to run a minimum of $100-$125, so for anyone thinking of building the set, that might not be possible.
Speaking of SETS, if we go back to Lew Lipset's Old Judge website, and look at his old auctions, he did sell an amazing w503 complete set in 2006, for $33,657.