Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	E254 and E270 Colgan’s Chips
Year	1909-13
Size	Varies
Images	Black and White
Type	Candy/Caramel
Number in Set	600+

E254 and E270 Colgan’s Chips Overview

The E254 and E270 Colgan’s Chips sets sort of go hand in hand. Both were produced by Colgan’s and were unique, round black and white discs as opposed to a more traditional rectangular card.

The fronts included a player image as well as his name and team name. Backs featured advertisements for the cards. Players in the checklist included both major leaguers and minor leaguers.

A total of three distinct sets make up the Colgan’s Chips series as outlined below. Discs were packaged with Colgan’s gum products. The company’s key feature of its product was that their gum was round.

Even though the cards were circular, Colgan’s possibly experimented with four-sided cards. In addition to the three disc issues, a square, ‘proof’ set is also known with more than 50 cards. Those cards were similar in design to the discs with only a player image, name, and team on the fronts. Backs of the square cards, however, are blank. The exact origins of them are unclear and it should be pointed out that, while they are commonly referred to as proofs, that may not really be the case.

The original set was believed to contain only 208 cards. We know this because some of the bottoms of these cards have a print stating as much (“208 in Present Series” below the statement of the gum being round). These ‘208’ cards are scarce and not easily found, generally deserving of a premium.

E254 Colgan’s Chips

The E254 discs feature backs that read “Stars of the Diamond.” This is generally the most common type that is spotted of the three.

More than 200 discs are included in this series. One was included in every five-cent package of Colgan’s Chips. This was the earliest of the Colgan’s Chips subsets and was produced from 1909-1911. It was the only one of the three that did not offer a premium item as a mail-in offer.

An example of a front from this set is shown above. Pictured here is one of the backs of the cards as well as one of the backs with the aforementioned ‘208 series’ print.

E270-1 Colgan’s Chips

The E270-1 set is the most distinctive simply because it has red borders. For that reason, it is the easiest to identify when trying to determine to which subset they belong.

Backs stated that by sending in 25 box tops from Colgan’s Violet or Mint Chips that customers would receive a photograph of a World’s Pennant Winning Team. Nearly 200 discs are included in this subset.

This series is believed to have been printed in 1912.

E270-2 Colgan’s Chips

The E270-2 Colgan’s Chips set included more than 200 discs.

This is known as the ‘Tin Tops’ subset because the backs state that a customer would receive a photograph of the World’s Pennant Winning Team by sending in 25 tin tops from packages of Colgan’s Violet or Mint Chips and a two-cent stamp. The fronts look similar to the other type of Colgan’s cards.

These were believed to be produced in 1912 and/or 1913. Pictured here is one of the backs of these cards.

Colgan’s Chips Checklists

Here is a master checklist of the Colgan’s Chips issues.

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