1929 Kashin Publications Set (R316)

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	R316 Kashin Publications
Year	1929
Size	3 1/4″ x 4 1/2″
Images	Black and White
Type	Candy/Gum
Number in Set	101

1929 R316 Kashin Publications Overview

The 1929 R316 Kashin Publications cards featured black and white player images with replica signatures on the front with mostly blank backs. With just over 100 cards in the set, this is a fairly large release. Printed on thin card stock, these are more photographs than baseball ‘cards’.

While nearly all of the R316s have blank backs, a small number have been discovered with advertisements. Some of the known advertisers, included:

Douglas Park Auditorium
Morton Theatre (pictured here)
Rialto Theatre

The set includes a number of stars and is headlined by New York Yankees Hall of Famers Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Other big names include Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Hack Wilson, and countless others.

Two different types are known. The more common version includes only the player information/signature on the front but a second, rarer version includes the phrase, “Made in the USA.”

The set includes black and white photos and replica signatures. Also on the fronts are the players’ teams. The pictures are unnumbered and presented below in alphabetical order. Many of the pictures were shot by Charles Conlon and used as the artwork for Goudey cards. The pictures are also found in other sets, including the W553, W554, and 1929 Leader Novelty issues.

Babe Ruth and R316 Kashin Short Prints

Speaking of Ruth, four cards are difficult to find and can be considered short prints possibly because of The Babe.

It is said that the cards of Bump Hadley, Jesse Haines, Harry Seibold, and Phil Todt were removed from packages during production and replaced with Babe Ruth cards. The idea, reportedly, was to get one Ruth card in each pack of 25 of the Kashin photos. That is basically confirmed by packaging for the Kashin issues, which was printed later, mentioning Ruth’s name on all four of the available 25-photo boxes.

With Ruth in every later pack, his photo was essentially quadrupled. Still, that hasn’t hurt asking prices as the Ruth issues are still quite valuable, similar to the double printed Ruth cards found in the 1933 Goudey set.

Link to Brody Baseball Stars

In 2018 through a wrapper that was submitted by a collector, I discovered that some of the R316 Kashin photos could actually be something called Brody Baseball Stars.

You can read the full article here, but essentially, Kashin and Brody were two different companies that were somehow linked together. That is evident through two movie star sets produced by them (W618 Kashin and E243 Brody) and also in the packaging of the products for the two companies.

I believe that the two different types of Kashins (with and without the Made in USA text) could be the factor in separating the R316 Kashins from the Brody Baseball Stars.

However, more evidence is still needed to make that conclusion.