1934 Al Demaree Die-Cuts Set and Checklist (R304)

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	R304 Al Demaree Die-Cuts
Year	1934
Size	Varies
Images	Color
Type	Candy/Gum
Number in Set	168

1934 Al Demaree Die-Cuts Overview

The 1934 R304 Al Demaree Die-Cuts are a crude looking card issue. The cards are exactly as stated in their title – die cuts of various players. The bottom has a part that folds so the player can project as a stand up. The cards were used with some sort of a baseball game.

The cards include a bit of color, but overall, are mostly colorless. They were produced by the Dietz Gum Company based in Chicago.

In addition to the player image, his name, position, and team is at the bottom along with a card number.

A total of 168 cards are believed to be in the set, but 167 is the highest number seen. Ten cards are included for each of the 16 teams and several umpires are depicted in numbers 160 through 167. It is assumed a 168th card exists to balance out the number of umpires. For now, there are three National League umps and two American League Umps, so it is assumed the remaining two would be American League umps.

Since ten cards existed for each team, however, it is possible that there could have been five umpire cards for each league, which would bring the total number of cards to 170.

The cards are quite rare and numerous ones have only been checklisted in recent years. One of those is a card for Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, which constitutes as one of his rookie cards.

Here’s a great article on the entire set with more information.

1934 Al Demaree Die-Cuts Checklist

It should be noted that some cards in the checklist have not been confirmed. Those, however, have been generally accepted by the hobby to be accurate and are listed as part of the formal checklist.

The reason is that each team had a player for every position. Adding a batter to every team, there are ten cards for each one. So for example, while the Yankees catcher and right field cards have not been formally discovered, they are assumed to be held by Bill Dickey and Babe Ruth, respectively.

Even despite that, many other assumptions have been taken to try to fill in gaps in the checklist. I have listed several, however, as TBD until more information surfaces.