New discovery

In the recent REA auction, a lot of 58 1940 Play Balls were offered with a rare Superman ad back. The assumption in the lot description was that these backs only existed on cards 123-180 as the long time collector that put this group together had never found this back outside that series.

REA link

While sorting thru my collection to get various cards ready for sale, I paid particular attention to whether there Superman ads or not on my cards. I was surprised to find out that one of Superman backs I had was card #222.



High #s are tough enough for this set, how rare is this card with a long time collector never found one of these above #180?

Jay

Jay,

That's just awesome! Will you attempt to contact the collector that REA talked about?

AndyH

I've already been in contact with Rob about this discovery as I knew it would be of great interest to him.

Jay

Very cool Jay! Congrats on your find.

Jay,

Please keep us informed on what you hear back from Rob.

Thanks,

AndyH

you gotta look for 'em, otherwise
you're just watchin' da show
Who knows what treasures are lurking in your dupes box

Does this mean that there may be other high #'s besides yours with the same back?


Mark

The assumption would be that all the hi# can be found with it. At this time, this would be the only known example. Who knows, maybe the hi# weren't meant to have that ad and it was taken off the cards very early in what was already a short print run.

Jay

Correct. This could be really unusual, or less so. Until everyone checks theirs, we do not know.
But it is not likely to be common. However, most rarities in this hobby are common.

I just purchased this week something new to me:





I was unaware that w572s were available in colors.

Hoo nose? Good luck, Jay!

Givent that there was a dedicaed collector looking at lots and lots of cards for these rare backs, chances are there aren't going to be a whole lot more turning up. The best example is the t207 with a brown Recruit back that I brought to light about 5 years. At this point, I don't think there have been more than 10 of these cards found.

Jay

Agreed.
That makes sense.

I guess I was never aware there were different backs for Playballs. How many are there? Is this the only year it happened? My 39 Playball has an ad for Blony gum on it.

Lee

There are two different backs regular backs where the player's name is either all upper case lettering or just the first letter of the name being upper case. Then there is the Superman ad back and according to the aution description, there 6 differentversions. Not sure if each card can have each add or they are unique to certain cards.

Jay