1930-31 Crescent Confectionery Cigarettes Sportsmen Set and Checklist

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Crescent Confectionery Cigarettes Sportsmen
Year	1930-31
Size
Images	Black and White
Type	Candy/Caramel
Number in Set	100

1930-31 Crescent Confectionery Cigarettes Sportsmen Set Overview

Bobby Jones 1928 Crescent Sportsmen Golf This extremely rare set was produced in 1930-31 by Crescent Confectionery Cigarettes. While that may sound like a tobacco brand, it was not. The company was undoubtedly a confectionery organization producing candy. The confusion with the name on the fronts of these cards could indicate these were packaged with candy cigarettes for children. That product, by the way, was available at the time of production.

There has been much confusion by this set as well as other Crescent issues. This site seems to have a lot of good information, though I haven’t been able to fully confirm everything. But the gist is that three Crescent sets were produced and the interesting thing is that there could be two different Crescent companies. The sets produced, according to that page, were:

1923-24 Footballers
1927-28 General Interest (subsets of ten with non-sports)
1930-31 Sportsmen

Of those three, this page refers to the Sportsmen series. A note regarding the dating is that the set is commonly called both a 1925 and a 1928 set. However, according to one of the subjects in the set (as indicated in that aforementioned link), it would have been produced in either 1930 or 1931.

The cards are very difficult to find in the U.S. To date, PSA has graded only eight total cards from the set. They do come up for sale every now and then here in the U.S. but not very often. While it was a multi-sport set, most of the cards are related to soccer, rugby, or cricket. A select few athletes are also found in it, though, representing boxing, tennis, and golf.

The cards featured black and white images of athletes on the front along with thick white borders, a card number, and the Crescent Confectionery Cigarettes name. Backs of the cards are blank. Most of the names in the set will not be recognizable to American collectors. However, a few popular figures are found here, including golf legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen and tennis stars Bill Tilden and Betty Nuthall.