1921 Koester Bread (D383) Set and Checklist

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Koester Bread (D383)
Year	1921
Size	2″ x 3 1/4″
Images	Black and White
Type	Bakery
Number in Set	52

1921 Koester Bread (D383) Overview

The 1921 Koester Bread (D383) set is a black and white issue resembling the W575-1 blank-backed set.

The card designs are the same as those and, in the cases of players found in both sets, the same pictures are used. A player image takes up most of the space on the fronts and a white border surrounds it on all sides. The bottom, in the border space, includes the name of the player, his position, and team. No card number is printed and the backs of the cards are entirely blank.

The most unique aspect of the card, perhaps, is that it is entirely a New York issue. The cards were printed for New York-based Koester Bread and players in the set are either members of the Yankees or Giants. The set was possibly created as part of a promotion surrounding the 1921 World Series, which included both of those teams.

Two different types of Koester cards actually exist. One are thicker cards that were hand-cut from an advertising poster (one seen here was sold here for nearly $5,000). A second type are actual cards that were printed on thinner stock and believed to be included inside of the company’s bread products.

In general, because the hand-cut issues were only from an advertising poster, they aren’t really ‘genuine’ cards – more like pictures of the cards, similar to things like cards cut from 19th Century album premiums. They certainly remain desirable, however, and still have value.

Identification

A big problem regarding this set is that it can be very difficult to tell them from the W575-1 cards, which are also blank-backed cards with the E121 American Caramel design. There are some easy ones that can definitely be identified as Koester’s cards.

Many of the Koester cards were not printed in the W575-1 set, so those would definitely be Koester cards. Those are identified in the checklist below. In addition, the thicker hand-cut cards from the poster mentioned earlier are considered Koester cards as well.

Finally, many can be identified as Koester’s cards based on their position designations printed on the bottom of the cards. More information on those can be found here.

1921 Koester Bread (D383) Checklist

Any cards believed to not be in the W575-1 set are identified below. Thus, any cards of those players are definitely Koester’s Bread cards and not regular black-backed W575-1s.