1927-32 Die Welt in Bildern (The World in Pictures) Sets and Checklists

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Die Welt in Bildern (The World in Pictures)
Year	1927-32
Size	1 9/16 x 2 1/4″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco
Number in Set	1,180

1927-32 Die Welt in Bildern (The World in Pictures) Overview

Max Schmeling 1928 Josetti Boxing.jpg This large, complex set was printed over a series of years. Most sources indicate they were released between 1927-32 but others vary. While four different sets exist, they are all essentially the same issue. The official name of the set is called Die Welt in Bildern, which, translated from German, means The World in Pictures. That is how the set is commonly advertised in the U.S.

Like some other large international, multi-sport issues, this massive set is made up of tons of smaller subsets. The series’ varied including subjects such as the Olympics, boxers, tennis players, and actors/actresses. The subsets grouped similar types of things together and included a mix of sports and non-sports subjects. For example, Series No. 158 included three boxers in Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, and Max Schmeling.

Tennis players include a subset with Hall of Famers Bill Tilden, Helen Wills, and Henri Cochet.

In addition to the key sports figures, many well-known non-sports subjects from a variety of backgrounds are included in the set, too. The massive 1,180-card set also contains cards of subjects, aside from people, including famous structures/locations, animals, and more.

The set is broken out into numerous subsets consisting of three or six cards.

Hockey

Die Welt In Bildern Ice Hockey Josetti Of the major American sports, hockey is found in this set through the 1928 Olympics series’. At least one card from that sport exists. The card features the Canadian hockey team at the Olympics and the back touts their ability to play the game.

Translated from German, the back roughly says that ice hockey is the fastest game in the world where no other sport has situations that change so rapidly. It goes on to state that, in addition to great skill, technique and precision are required before mentioning Canada was the Olympic champion and could not be beaten by anyone in Europe.

The scene on the card is similar to one found on a 1927-28 Erdal Kwak card, which featured Team Canada vs. Switzerland. That would seem to make sense as it was the final game of the Olympics. Interestingly, it wasn’t really a gold medal match as four teams played a round robin format to determine the winner. Canada won gold but Switzerland received only bronze as Sweden won silver. Great Britain, the fourth team, did not medal.

Backs

Die Welt im Bildern Bela Von Kehrling Backs As mentioned, these cards were printed for various brands of cigarettes. Thus, similar to sets like T205 and T206, the same card fronts can be found paired with different back advertisements.

These sets were produced for at least six different German cigarette brands in:

Constantin Hannover
Jasmatzi
Josetti
Manoli
Salem
Sulima

The setup is similar to a 1931 set shared by Josetti, Jasmatzi, and Sulima that featured Babe Ruth as an actor, as well as other international series used by different tobacco advertisers.

All cards are believed to have been printed with all of the brands. For example, shown here are backs for a tennis player, Bela von Kehrling. Of note is that the same series and card numbers are used for the same three brands.