1929-30 Four-on-One Exhibits Set and Checklist

Posted on August 27, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	W463 Exhibits
Year	1929-30
Size	3 3/8″ x 5 3/8″
Images	Color Tints
Type	Exhibit
Number in Set	32

1929-30 Four-on-One Exhibit Set Overview

Eight different pre-war sets make up the W463 Exhibits issue. In addition to the pre-war era W463s (and the earlier W461s from 1921 through 1928), additional Exhibit card sets from the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s were also printed as well.

Exhibits are sometimes called postcards, although that isn’t really accurate since only some have postcard backings. Many Exhibit cards are blank-backed and some cards include a corner coupon printed on the back.

These are classified in the American Card Catalog as W-Cards, but they are not strip cards like other W-card issues.

Most Exhibits look fairly nice. However, almost all of the sets have plenty of typos and misspelled names. Players were also misidentified throughout the series.

Starting in 1929, Exhibit moved to a different design to feature four players on one card. All W463 classified cards have this same design with four players to a single card. Collectors should note that many of these cards have been cut up over the years. Thus, instead of having one large card with four pictures, they were left with four smaller individual cut ‘cards.’ That has also confused many collectors unfamiliar with W463s as to the origins of these new, smaller cut cards. While there is some value for these cut outs, the fully intact four-in-one cards, of course, are worth much more.

Specifically, the 1929-30 Exhibit card set features cards with a variety of tints, including red, blue, green, orange, yellow, and white. Shown here are two examples from the set.

Similar to the 1935 Goudey set, these cards do not merely contain random players. Instead, four players from the same team were used. Each of baseball’s 16 teams were featured on two different cards for a total of eight players represented per team. All of the 1929-30 Exhibit cards have postcard backs.

These cards included the name and team/league of the player pictured. As with past Exhibit sets, a dark ink was used when the print was over top of a lighter background and a light ink was used when the background was darker. Formatting is varied with some players having their full first/last names printed and others only having initials of their first and or middle name printed.

Cards do not include card numbers. All of the cards have a vertical layout.

Leading the way in this particular set is a New York Yankees card that features Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Leo Durocher, and Mark Koenig.