1934 Goudey Baseball Cards: Happy 75th to an Enigma

Think you can’t chase a mainstream 1930s baseball card set without a big bankroll? Think again.

It turns 75 years old this year, as friendly and fickle as ever.  The 1934 Goudey baseball card set has three of the best pre-War bubble gum cards among its 96 subjects.

It doesn’t have Babe Ruth.

It has 24 scarce high numbers.

It has two Lou Gehrig cards.  It’s got Hank Greenberg’s rookie card.

Getting a handle on this set isn’t easy, but it’s an invitation to a truly vintage card set from another era that’s manageable in time and budget. Consisting of just 96 cards, the set is known by its catalog file of R320. Measuring 2 3/8 x 2 7/8, the cards are in many respects more attractive than the 1933 Goudey set.

The 1934 Goudey set was built around Lou Gehrig, who signed a deal with the company to become the face and voice just a year after its splashy 1933 debut. Gehrig’s comments adorn each card including, somewhat awkwardly, his own. Gehrig’s image appears on most of the cards in the set with a “Lou Gehrig says…” phrase driving traffic to the Gehrig analysis on the back. There are a handful of cards, however, that feature “Chuck Klein says…” with the Philadelphia slugger offering his comments.

The Gehrig cards in the set are the only two which typically sell for over $1000 in mid-grade. Together with the #1 Jimmy Foxx, they comprise the bulk of the value of the set, which is comprised of only a handful of Hall of Famers and many whose names escape baseball fans today. There are 24 high number cards which are more difficult to find and will also take up a collector’s time and money. On a budget, though, such obstacles can be overcome and it’s not unreasonable to buy a decent-looking set for around $5000. Spread over a couple of years buying one or two cards at a time, it’s really not a daunting task. A complete set in VG-EX grade sold at auction last month for $5363. A graded set in roughly the same shape, brought nearly $7000 in 2006. Another, in slightly better condition, went for $7637 last year. Collectors are starting to wake up to the set’s relative value, though. Upper Deck’s move to bring Goudey’s name and classic designs to the modern card market hasn’t hurt either.

Holding the 1934 set’s value down, of course, is the lack of a Ruth card. He appears in Goudey’s premium set in ’34, but after four cards in ’33, the Babe is AWOL. It could have had something to do with Gehrig’s role as the set’s spokesman. The two weren’t always best of friends and it would have seemed awkward to have Gehrig waxing poetic about a teammate with which he didn’t see eye to eye. Ruth isn’t the only 1930s star missing, though.

In fact, after the first 37 cards in the 1934 Goudey set, the quality of the players presented drops off considerably with only the second Gehrig,  Greenberg, Ki Ki Cuyler and Red Rolfe holding much star power. The final card in the set, Jim DeShong, also holds value in higher grade. Card #s 4, 24, 48, 76, 79 and 95 are among the challenges for those putting together a high grade set.

Among the 19 Hall of Famers in the 1934 Goudey baseball set are Mickey Cochrane, Dizzy Dean, Charlie Gehringer, Frankie Frisch and Carl Hubbell, who may not be considered a household name today but commanded mega star attention in the mid-1930s. In fact, pitchers Dean, Hubbell and Lefty Grove are among the set’s second tier of valuable cards.

The 1934 Goudey checklist is below and you can see cards for sale and auction on eBay here.

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About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for over 40 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected].