Set of the Week: 1934-36 R327 Diamond Stars

Figured the gum issues needed some love so time to do the Diamond Stars set.

The Diamond Stars set was issued by the National Chicle Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was distributed from 1934-36. Diamond Stars was the dominant baseball card issue 1935 and 1936. Mainly because Goudey issued some pretty lackluster sets then.

The cards feature paintings of actual player photos. Diamond Stars stand out from those other issues with their vivid art deco style. This really set them apart from Goudey and their solid colored backgrounds.

The cards were issued over a three-year period leading to a number of variations, mostly on the card backs. While the card fronts stayed the same from year to year, the backs changed to note the year. The backs themselves either feature a player biography or a tip for baseball players. Some backs have either blue or green ink, depending on the year of issue. 1934 is green, 1935 is either blue or green and 1936 is blue. In the ad at the bottom of the card there is a note that the card is one of 240 in the set. Obviously they were not all issued as there are only 108 cards that were eventually printed.

Cards 1-24 made up the original 1934 issue. For 1935, cards 1-24 were reissued, 25-72 were printed with green backs and 73-84 can be found with either blue or green backs. In 1936 some cards from 1-31 were printed again, along with all cards from 73-84 and the final run, 85-108. The set has a run of very scarce high-number cards 97-108, which feature players already present elsewhere in the set.

There are a couple of variations concerning the spelling of Ernie Lombardi and Hank Greenberg's names.

Artwork for twelve cards that were intended for, but never issued were found and a collector set was released in the mid-80's.

also some shirt variations like Manush with and w/o the 'W' and Simmons with or w/o the Sox n shirt.

Cards that were reprinted for the most part have different years of stats on the back. The shirt variations are consistent within each printing.

Dan or E and correct me but I think the master set consists of 168 cards.

correct, 168.

I would have to count my set, sounds fun though if I can find it! So I hope there are 168 cards in that binder and I know I have 3 or 4 wrapper variations, Dan. The low number green cards with the 1933 stats were the toughest for me to find.

We'd love to see scans of the wrappers.

Here's Rick Ferrell:



And Wes Ferrell:

I came so close to starting this set, many times. I ended up going with '34 World Wide Gum, but I love the artwork of this set. Really doesn't look like any other.

I will scan my wrappers some time this weekend.

Lee