1929 W553 Strip Card Set

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Keys For Collectors

• Marble Gum Inc. of Philadelphia released this ten-card strip card issue in 1929.
• The card fronts are either black and white or rarer blue or red tints and have a facsimile autograph for the player. The backs are blank.
• The cards’ images are identical to those of the R316 Kashin Publications set and the W554 Strip Card Set.
• Nine of the ten cards in the set are Hall Of Famers, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Rogers Hornsby.
• The baseball cards were issued via uncut strips; however, some non-sport pack discoveries from the set show that the non-sport (movie star) cards were issued in packs with a stick of gum.
• The non-sports version of the set is known as the ‘Marble Gum Film Stars’ set.
• The cards are hard to find; PSA has graded only 61 cards from the baseball set. 

W553 – Lots Of Colors In This Confusing Strip/Gum Issue

Not much is known about Marble Gum, aside from the fact that it was based in Philadelphia. Thus, the W553 set has confused collectors for quite some time. The baseball set was once believed to have 15 cards, but some shrewd collectors determined that the extra five cards once believed to be a part of the W553 set were actually Leader Novelty issues.

To confuse the matter further, the W553 cards utilize the same images from the R316 Kashin Publications set, and the W554 Strip Card set.

W553 Lou Gehrig

Kashin Lou Gehrig

W554 Lou Gehrig

The W553 has a variety of hues that make for many different variations in the set.  Here are three examples of different colored W553 Gehrig cards.

W553 Cards for Sale on eBay