1936 Newspaper Sport Stamps Set and Checklist

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Newspaper Sport Stamps Set
Year	1936
Size	Varies by Cut
Images	Black and White
Type	Stamps
Number in Set	Unknown

1936 Newspaper Sport Stamps Set Overview

1936 Sport Stamps.jpg Similar to other issues such as the Rinkeydink set, the 1936 Sport Stamps are simply cutouts directly from newspapers. The baseball sports stamps are the most known but there were also ones featuring football players, boxers, golfers, and other athletes. In addition to the pro baseball and football players, collegians and minor leaguers were included, too.

Numerous newspapers distributed these and some included:

Atlanta Georgian-American
Boston American
Chicago American
Detroit Times
Los Angeles Examiner
Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph
Sporting News
Sunday Advertiser

The Sporting News stamps included baseball players that made the All-Star team.

While most were current athletes, some featured past ones. The 1936 Detroit Times, for example, included Ty Cobb in their set, even though he had retired in the late 1920s. Cobb’s stamp featured him in a suit instead of a baseball uniform and indicated that he was then living in San Francisco.

There wasn’t much variation in terms of the design on these. They were printed in the shape of a large postage stamp with the word ‘SPORT’ written vertically on the left side of the picture and ‘STAMP’ on the right. Above the player’s image was the name of the newspaper and at the bottom was his name, position, and team in a thin rectangle. Below the stamp was a short biography of the player. Some collectors kept the bio portion cutting around it and including it with the stamp while others simply removed that part.

The classification of these as a stamp rests on the images. While many would question their collectability, they are slightly different from a cut out of a picture in the newspaper as they bear the name ‘Sport Stamp’ on them and the outline is in the shape of a postage stamp. For that reason, they were supposed to be cut out from the newspaper, which is why some would consider them a form of card despite the fact they are printed on simple newspaper stock.

The stamps do have some value but, despite their rarity, are not incredibly expensive. A lot featuring 65 of them with numerous Hall of Famers recently sold for only about $8.00 per stamp.

Two of the key rookies from these newspapers are those of Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller.