1934 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	1934
Size	3 3/8″ x 5 3/8″
Images	Color Tints
Type	Exhibit
Number in Set	16

1934 Four-on-One Exhibit Set Overview

1934 Exhibit Reds 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 1934 Exhibit card set features cards with a variety of tint colors.

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 a card — this was a change from the first few years in this series when each team had two cards. All of the 1934 Exhibit cards have blank 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.

Fonts of the cards vary that seemed to have a pattern. Most players that were on the previous year’s team card maintained a heavy, thicker font for their name. Most players that were new to that team’s card had a smaller, less bold font. However, that was not always the case. The card for the Brooklyn Dodgers, for example, that misidentified Al Lopez as Vincent Lopez, has his name in the smaller, less bold font. However, he was on the 1933 Dodgers card with that same font.

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

The most valuable card in the set is a special one featuring four Hall of Famers — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, and Bill Dickey. In 2018, a rare autographed copy of this card (signed by all four players) was sold at auction.