It seems like an odd combination. Baseball cards might be a natural to tie into the promotion of breakfast cereal, hot dogs and snack cakes. Dog food? Seems like you’d be barking up the wrong tree if you were the marketing guy who came up with that idea. Thankfully, someone at John Morrell Company decided it was a solid plan and 60 years after they became available, collectors still love the 1954 Red Heart Dog Food baseball card set.
While it isn’t known how the Morrell folks, makers of Red Heart, figured the mail-in offer would boost sales of whoever in the family was buying Rover his eats, we do know that 33 cards were made in three different series and that 11 of them would eventually be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Unlike its larger Topps and Bowman cousins, the Red Heart set is a pick of the litter type of issue. Cards from “The Big League Dog Food” are avidly collected by vintage card fans, especially those looking to build a high grade set since doing so is actually an attainable goal.
The mail-in offer for the 1954 Red Heart cards was advertised in Sunday newspaper comic sections in the summer of 1954. All you had to do was buy two cans of Red Heart, stick a dime in the envelope and wait for one of the three series of 11 to arrive in your mailbox. We’ve heard rumors that the sets were available by mail years after the promotion had ended, but we’re not sure if that’s actually true.
Made of sturdy card stock, they weren’t stuck to the cans or dropped in bags and that’s why today, many Red Heart cards survive in outstanding shape. Of the current Finest sets on the PSA Set Registry, some 13 of them are complete with a rating of 8 (NM/MT) or better.
The cards were designed to be simple but there’s a beauty in that simplicity. Morrell’s artists used photographs of the 33 players and hand colored the portrait type images, usually shot from the chest up. Some of those photos were recently available in an auction with the Spahn photo selling vor $3,286, while others brought under $400 each.
Each series of 11 cards in the Red Heart set carried its own specific color background: blue, red or green.
The checklist (printed below)? It includes Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn, Duke Snider, Ralph Kiner, Nellie Fox, Billy Martin, Ted Kluzewski, Richie Ashburn and some guy named Musial, who wasn’t in either bubble gum set that year, having refused to sign for what Topps and Bowman offered players. Musial, in fact, was the advertising spokesman for the set. Getting him had to be a major coup for the Morrell/Red Heart people and a face palming moment for the gum executives who couldn’t afford him.
The downside of a set that is packed with high-grade Hall of Famers is that it can be pricey. A near mint set can often run $3,000 and up. The condition of the Mantle card is key.
You can see 1954 Red Heart baseball cards, both graded and ungraded, on eBay here.
1954 Red Heart Baseball Checklist
SP=single print (more scarce)
1 – Richie Ashburn SP
2 – Frank Baumholtz SP
3 – Gus Bell
4 – Billy Cox
5 – Alvin Dark
6 – Carl Erskine SP
7 – Ferris Fain
8 – Dee Fondy
9 – Nellie Fox
10 – Jim Gilliam
11 – Jim Hegan SP
12 – George Kell
13 – Ralph Kiner SP
14 – Ted Kluszewski SP
15 – Harvey Kuenn
16 – Bob Lemon SP
17 – Sherman Lollar
18 – Mickey Mantle
19 – Billy Martin
20 – Gil McDougald SP
21 – Roy McMillan
22 – Minnie Minoso
23 – Stan Musial SP
24 – Billy Pierce
25 – Al Rosen SP
26 – Hank Sauer
27 – Red Schoendienst SP
28 – Enos Slaughter
29 – Duke Snider
30 – Warren Spahn
31 – Sammy White
32 – Eddie Yost
33 – Gus Zernial
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