Pre-War Cards

A photograph that is nearly identical to the pose used on Lou Gehrig’s 1933 Goudey cards sold for big bucks

Lou Gehrig has two cards in the iconic 1933 Goudey set. And over the weekend, an original Gehrig Type I photo with a nearly identical pose sold for more than $100,000.

The photo was offered by SCP Auctions and fetched $122,713. It was also taken by Charles Conlon, autographed by Gehrig, and authenticated by PSA.

The picture was not exactly the same as the one used to create Gehrig’s card. That picture is seemingly this one that was auctioned previously by REA for $60,000. But, as shown here, the SCP photograph is pretty close. The biggest differences are in the angle of the bat and exact position of Gehrig’s back leg. As noted in SCP’s listing, this picture was likely taken within a few frames of the one used for the cards.

The autograph obviously added a lot of value to the photo. The exact one used for the cards would obviously be more desirable than this image and that one didn’t even sell for half of what this did. That auction was from about two years ago but it’s still easy to see that Gehrig’s signature on this one is what really bumped it up.

The market for Type I photos these days is, like cards, pretty healthy. This is another example of that.

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