1935 M120 Detroit Free Press Tigers Set and Checklist

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	M120 Detroit Free Press Tigers
Year	1935
Size	9″ x 11″
Images	Color
Type	Publications
Number in Set	18

M120 Detroit Free Press Tigers Supplements Overview

This set of 18 photos was produced by the Detroit Free Press, focusing on only the hometown Detroit Tigers. The pictures could be received by redeeming coupons from the newspaper in 1935. That was helpful because the aesthetics of the supplements were not restricted to the newspaper’s look.

Many supplements in other publications were black and white or sepia toned while being printed on the same type of paper as the publication. But as a separate issue, that allowed for these supplements to be a bit nicer.

The photos were approximately 9″ x 11″ and featured full color photos of the team. That squad was well-represented by big names including Hall of Famers Mickey Cochrane, Charlie Gehringer, Goose Goslin, and slugger Hank Greenberg.

Appearance wise, the pictures were full-color portraits of players. Each photo had a white border with the player’s name at the bottom and an interior color border that varied between players. Unfortunately, they were printed on relatively thin stock, which makes them easy to damage.

Four colors were prominent in the photos – blue, green, red, and yellow. Those four colors are used in the interior border and also as the backgrounds. Backs of them are blank.

Joe Louis and Others

Joe Louis M120 Detroit Free Press In addition to the baseball supplements, a few other similar looking premiums from the Detroit Free Press are known, too.

Most notably, a premium with the same style was issued for boxing great Joe Louis. Louis’ photo is slightly different since it includes a short description for him (“Detroit Free Press Golden Gloves Graduate and Aspirant for World’s Heavyweight Championship”). However, the newspaper basically used the same design and that has led some to checklist Louis with the baseball players.

Louis was not the only non-baseball player supplement created by the Free Press. Other non-sports personalities were issued by them, though, those have an even different format.

Louis not generally considered to be a part of the Tigers set. One could, however, theoretically lump the Louis in with the others and merely consider them a “Detroit Free Press Supplements” set from 1935. After all, we’ve done with other sets consisting of more than one sport or sets that have both sports and non-sports subjects.