1923 German Transfers Set and Checklist

‘It’s In The Details’

Title German Transfers
Year 1923
Size 1 1/8″ x 1 1/2″
Images Color
Type Stamps
Number in Set
25

1923 German Transfers Overview

1923-german-transfer

The 1923 German Transfers sheet includes a total of 25 subjects. The set is a multi-sport release containing both baseball players and boxing stars.

Despite the fact that these are mostly American subjects, the stamps clearly were not made here. We know that because the bottom of each stamp has the print, ‘Made in Germany.’ Hence, that is where the name is derived from.

These can be found separated with perforated edges or sometimes with the full sheet intact. A fully intact sheet includes five rows of five athletes and measures, roughly, 6″ x 8″.

Three players were repeated in the set – baseball players Zack Wheat and Red Faber, and also boxer Georges Carpentier. As a result, their stamps were double printed, although it doesn’t generally hurt their values with this set, which isn’t widely collected.

Also included on the sheet are big names Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey, Grover Alexander, Tris Speaker, and more. Ruth and Cobb stamps generally sell for the most.

Athlete names on the transfers are, of course, reversed. This is so that they display properly when the transfer is affixed to something.

While the transfers are technically in color, the only ink colors used were red and green.

W515 Strip Card Link

Ty Cobb W515 Strip23gs-cobbOf note is that, at least some of the stamps share images with those used in the W515 strip card set.

Both issues are dated to 1923, further linking the sets.

Shown here are the Ty Cobb transfer from this set as well as Cobb’s W515 strip card to show the similarity. The obvious difference is that the image on the transfer is reversed from the W515 strip card. As indicated above, that was obviously intentional to allow the transfer to be displayed facing the right way when applied to a surface.

1923 German Transfers Checklist

The transfers are somewhat rare and PSA has graded about 200 to date.

  1. Grover Alexander
  2. Dave Bancroft
  3. Leonard Benny
  4. George Burns
  5. Georges Carpentier
  6. Georges Carpentier
  7. Ty Cobb
  8. Jack Dempsey
  9. Red Faber
  10. Red Faber
  11. Luis Firpo
  12. Tommy Gibbons
  13. Floyd Johnson
  14. Art Nehf
  15. Babe Ruth
  16. Ray Schalk
  17. Everett Scott
  18. Bob Shawkey
  19. Babbling Siki
  20. Tris Speaker
  21. Casey Stengel
  22. Lew Tendler
  23. Zack Wheat
  24. Zack Wheat
  25. Harry Willis

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