1930s R79 Leader Discs Set and Checklist

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	R79 Leader Discs
Year	1930s
Size	2 3/16″
Images	Color
Type	Candy/Gum
Number in Set	56 (?)

R79 Leader Discs Overview

r79-nyu

The R79 Leader Discs set is a rare 1930s issue containing many cards. A full checklist is unknown and the set includes both sports and non-sports cards. Sports cards featured a variety of colleges and universities across the United States. Non-sports cards included at least flags, insignias, and Native Americans. Jefferson Burdick, who classified them as R79 in the American Card Catalog, says they were distributed with Leader Gum.

In addition to the major sports, other sports were included in the set such as tennis, swimming, and track and field.

Fronts include a color picture of a generic athlete in a particular sport, a pennant identifying the school, and a team logo or mascot. Despite the sport depicted on the front, the backs of the sports cards all have a football and pennants at the top with a tennis player at the bottom. Backs also include the school name, a card number, and brief information about the school.

These cards are impossibly rare and while the cards of the four major sports listed above will be the key issues for most collectors, any of the cards in the set would be considered nice finds. The R79 Leader Discs checklist is not fully confirmed.

The discs are also similar to the college subset of the Seal Craft M30/R123 discs but not the same. Those discs have small holes in them, while these do not. In addition, the college Sealcraft discs feature school seals and are not sports-related. However, the sets would seem to be related simply because the same types of subjects here are largely found in the M30/R123 sets.

You do see these for sale occasionally, but only very rarely. Here is more information on the set with images of the discs.

R79 Leader Discs Checklist

Known sports cards (others may exist) from the colleges/universities in the set are listed below. Cards depicting the major American sports are denoted in bold font.

No. 90 Navy (Football)
No. 91 Stanford (Swimming)
No. 92 Kentucky (Polo)
No. 93 Pitt (Football)
No. 94 Vermont (Hockey)
No. 95 Princeton (Tennis)
No. 96 Fordham (Football)
No. 97 UCLA (Track and Field)
No. 98 NYU (Basketball)
No. 99 Notre Dame (Football)
No. 100 USC (Track and Field)
No. 101 Florida (Diving)
No. 102 Army (Football)
No. 103 California (Track and Field)
No. 104 Columbia (Football)
No. 105 Cornell (Track and Field)
No. 106 Yale (Track and Field)
No. 107 Dartmouth (Skiing)