1933 Goudey Baseball #106 Napoleon Lajoie—PSA Authentic

• Sold For: $13,035
• Year: 1933
• Auction: 2014 August
• Lot #: 3
• Auction Category: Prewar Baseball - 1930s and 1940s Cards

Graded Authentic by PSA. From 1933-1941, the Goudey Company on Boston, Massachusetts issued several of the most acclaimed early gum sets. Advertised as a “series of 240 baseball stars,” the first mainstream issue of “Big League Chewing Gum” was released in 1933 and proved an instant hit among American youth and trading card set collectors. Unfortunately, frenzied consumers were ultimately stymied in their attempt as card #106 was nowhere to be found. As many of their contemporaries and predecessors, Goudey never actually printed card #106 in packages of their product. Perhaps becoming wise to the tactic, a handful of enterprising early hobbyists wrote letters of complaint to the confectioner. Released only to those who put “pen to paper” in 1934, Goudey curbed the outcry by producing a special #106 Napoleon Lajoie card and mailing copies to those who yearned to complete their sets. With a 1934 copyright on the reverse, #106 Lajoie was produced near the time frame of the Sport Kings series. Recognizing the scarcity of the Hall of Famer, early collectors dubbed #106 Lajoie as one of the “Big Three” along with the iconic T206 Plank and Wagner examples. The offered 1933 Goudey #106 Napoleon Lajoie is one of the most celebrated baseball cards in history. This specimen is judged as “Altered” by PSA due to being a touch short. The properly centered portrait is framed by a lovely lime backdrop and the biographical reverse is clean. The obverse is brilliantly colored, a slight surface wrinkle on the left side, with well-defined corners and clean edges.