Overland Wrappers Checklist Expands with Two New Additions

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Pre-War Cards

A collector adds two wrappers to the known R301 Overland checklist

The 1936-42 Overland Wrappers (R301) are tough to find. As I wrote back in January, even the dating of their years of distribution remains inconclusive. Often listed as a 1930s series, they clearly extended into the 1940s, too. The 1936-42 date seems logical but is hardly confirmed and they could have even been distributed in a larger range of years.

Cataloged as R301 in the American Card Catalog, these wrappers once held candy and included pictures and biographies of baseball players on them. Most, obviously, would have been discarded. But, like anything else, some were kept and collected. Today, they are pretty tough to find and can be expensive.

The wrappers are so rare that even a fully confirmed checklist has eluded us. That is evident by new discoveries, which have taken place lately. REA sold several new ones in 2008 that were previously unchecklisted.

This week, a collector reached out to me with a few more additions that have not been checklisted elsewhere. Anthony Fosco emailed me recently and provided images for Overland wrappers featuring Babe Dahlgren and Lon Warneke.

Warneke’s is not easy to date since he is pictured with the St. Louis Cardinals and he played with that team from 1937-42. Dahlgren’s, however, would have been a later wrapper in the series. We know that because he is shown as a member of the Chicago Cubs, and he played with that team only briefly in parts of 1941 and 1942. His wrapper, like those of some others, clearly proves the series extended into the 1940s.

The wrappers, along with other cards, have been in Fosco’s family for some time. “The cards were my dad’s,” Anthony said. “They were in the bottom of an old box with a bunch of exhibit cards. The box sat in our living room growing up and company loved looking through the exhibit cards and Overland wrappers.”

The addition of Warneke and Dahlgren push the assumed checklist to 60 total wrappers now (not including variations, of which a few exist). Despite the wrappers from the Overland series being in existence now for more than 80 years, it’s clear there could even be more in the set.