1938 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	1938
Size	3 3/8″ x 5 3/8″
Images	Sepia
Type	Exhibit
Number in Set	16

1938 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 1938 Exhibit set features cards with a sepia-colored picture/brown ink as well as the print ‘Made in U.S.A.’ at the bottom. Those features distinguish it from all other Four-on-One Exhibit card sets. 1938 is notable as this is the final one in the series that had the four-on-one design.

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 1938 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.

Cards do not include card numbers. All of the cards have a vertical layout. Many of the same players and pictures were kept in this set from earlier issues.

The Pirates card is a bit special as the four players featured (Cy Blanton, Gus Suhr, Arky Vaughan, and Paul Waner) were the same ones from their 1937 card. The only other card with that distinction is one of the Philadelphia Athletics, with a much less star-studded group of Billy Weber, Harry Kelley, Wally Moses, and Billy Werber.

The Yankees also continued their tradition of having a card with four Hall of Famers on it. Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Lefty Gomez, and Bill Dickey make up the Yankees card, which is easily the most valuable one in the set.

A new face in the 1938 set was Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg who appeared on the Tigers card, making his Exhibit Four-in-One card debut. Also making his debut in the series was fellow Hall of Famer Johnny Mize, who shows up on the card for the St. Louis Cardinals.