205. Western and Southern Life Insurance Trade Cards Set and Checklist

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	205. Western and Southern Life Insurance Trade Cards
Year	Unknown
Size	3″ x 5″
Images	Color
Type	Trade
Number in Set	4

205. Western and Southern Life Insurance Trade Cards Overview

205 western and southern life insurance sports trade cards These cards are called the Western and Southern Life Insurance trade cards. The most popular card in the set is pictured here in the upper right — a young baseball player in a blue and white striped uniform, holding a bat. The entire set features children playing baseball, football, golf, and tennis.

This wasn’t Western and Southern Life Insurance’s only foray into the baseball card world. The company also distributed the H804-20 trade cards.

It should be noted that, while Frank Keetz identified this as the Western and Southern Life Insurance set, that is not really an accurate title. These cards, as most trade cards are, were used by several sponsors and seen with different company names on them instead. The Western and Southern Life Insurance name could be the most common but others certainly exist.

Finally, while the cards are not dated, it is possible to tell that some are a little older or newer based on the back advertisements on the insurance cards, which list a total paid out in claims. Obviously, cards with backs stating higher totals paid out will be newer issues.

These cards were numbered separately by noted trade card collector Frank Keetz in his book, “Baseball Advertising Trade Cards, 3rd Edition.” They were a trade cards he identified but ones that did not have a printed title on them. Because of that, he cataloged them with a number instead, which is the number in the title shown here.

Variations

While most of these trade cards are known with white borders and gray backgrounds, at least one variant exist. The variation is more of a square card and has more of a beige background instead. This variation seems to be significantly harder to find than the other primary one.

Also, these images have been seen on other items. Those images, for example, are seen in a set of bookmarks. They have also been spotted on bridge tallies and are in some cases, reversed. Finally, they were used for a series of postcards, too.