2020 October Legends Closing Oct 31 & Nov 1
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/31/2020
Graded VG 3 by SGC. Hall of Famer. This stellar, career-contemporary memento picturing Babe Ruth, and bearing his facsimile signature, is one of only a few such examples that have been confirmed to exist. The crisply focused, blank-backed photo card resembles a postcard, and acts as a prized, overseas-issue commemoration of the storied "U.S. Major League Japan Tour" of 1934. (Ruth's companion in the illustration, star catcher Jiro Kuji, was one of the legend's hosts during the Tour, and was himself later selected as an inaugural member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.) The card, technically downgraded primarily on the basis natural spots of age-toning, was produced in the Land of the Rising Sun, and is known as a "bromide." Unlike Japanese "menko" cards, "bromide" cards are usually single-color, photographic representations of ballplayers, and they were especially widespread in the 1940s and 1950s. Although typically sold glued onto "prize sheets" (and commonly seen with minor paper loss on the reverse), this piece reveals no sign of having undergone that process. One of the most unusual and exclusive Babe Ruth cards on the face of the earth, in praiseworthy Very Good condition.