1923 Olympia Boxing Playing Cards Set and Checklist
It’s in the Details
Title | Olympia Boxing Playing Cards |
Year | 1923 |
Size | 2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ |
Images | Black and White |
Type | Game Cards |
Number in Set |
55 |
1923 Olympia Boxing Playing Cards Overview
These playing cards were issued by Olympia Games in 1923. As Heritage Auctions points out, they were created for the Canadian marketplace.
The cards utilized a simple playing card design with black and white pictures. Unlike standard playing cards, though, suits and denominations were not present. Cards had an ornate blue ink playing card design on the back. While there were no suits, the cards did have color-coded titles.
Technically, this is a matching game and four colors were featured for the titles. Each card has one of our colors — black, green, orange, and red. The colors are seen in the titles on each card (this card shown here depicts Gene Tunney and has the Light Heavy-Weight title in black, for example).
Some of the cards are actual individual boxers while about 1/3 of the set of the cards had cartoon pictures of generic subjects for various ring terms, such as bell, arena, referee, and timekeeper.
As the cards had standard rounded playing card corners, like other pre-war playing card issues, these are often found in tremendous shape.
1923 Olympia Boxing Playing Cards Checklist
- Arena
- Arena
- Arena
- Arena
- Bell
- Bell
- Bell
- Bell
- Soldier Bartfield
- Jack Britton
- Joe Burman
- Georges Carpentier
- James Corbett
- Eugene Criqui
- Johnny Curtin
- Decision
- Jack Dempsey
- Draw
- Johnny Dundee
- Luis Firpo
- Foul
- Frankie Genaro
- Mike Gibbons
- Babe Herman
- Pete Herman
- Floyd Johnson
- Johnny Kilbane
- Knockout
- Benny Leonard
- Referee
- Referee
- Referee
- Referee
- Dave Rozenberg
- Rules (English)
- Rules (French)
- Battling Siki
- Jeff Smith
- Midget Smith
- Bud Taylor
- Timekeeper
- Timekeeper
- Timekeeper
- Timekeeper
- Gene Tunney
- Benny Valger
- Pancho Villa
- Mickey Walker
- George Ward
- Charlie White
- Jimmy Wilde
- Kid Williams
- Harry Wills
- Johnny Wilson
- Rules and Scoring
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