1926 Spalding Champions

The 1926 Spalding America Champion set consists of approximately 210 known cards, each measuring about 1-1/2” by 2-3/16”. Issued by the Spalding Sporting Goods Company, this set is one of the largest multi-sport sets of any era and covers a host of athletic heroes including those from baseball, football, boxing, golf, track and field, bicycling, and ballooning. Card fronts feature a posed black-and-white photo set within vintage frame design. “Champion” is imprinted along the top of the card with the respective athlete’s name and sport identified along the bottom with in an elaborately decorated rectangle. Card backs feature a short biography of the player, with a much scarcer variation that features advertising for “Sports Co. of America” and instructions on how to obtain an album to house the cards by mail. The advertising-on-reverse cards are considerably more rare than the text-style cards. Cards were issued in a small glassine envelope with a coupon good for ten cents of sports goods at Spalding. These cards are quite scarce, with set anchored by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Mickey Cochrane, KiKi Cuyler Tony Lazzeri, Rogers Hornsby, Pie Traynor, as well as Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Johnny Weissmuller, Bill Tilden, and Jack Dempsey. Highlights also include the “pre-rookie” cards of Hall of Famers Bennie Friedman and Ernie Nevers. (Their generally accepted rookie cards appear in the 1955 Topps All-American set.) The card issued for Bo McMillin has two errors: his name is misspelled “McMillan” … and the player on the card is not McMillin. Cards from this set were virtually non-existent until two separate high-grade “finds” in 1990 and 1996.