Vintage Card Of The Month: 1934 R136 National Chicle Sky Birds Amelia Earhart

Recently I included a 1933 National Chicle Sky Birds Immelmann card as the VCoM, this month I am covering the Sky Birds set once again. This month’s VCoM comes from the 1934 National Chicle Sky Birds set, Amelia Earhart.

 

The Sky Birds set was a skip numbered continuous set inserted in to packs of National Chicle Gum over multiple years. In 1933 cards #1-24 cards were released and in 1934 cards #25-108 were released. It is possible that the company planned on inserting the remaining cards, #109-144, in to packs of gum in 1935 but the company was beginning to have money problems around this time so they probably cut production of the cards to save money, the company eventually went bankrupt in 1937.

 

There are three cards on the checklist that are targeted by collectors of the set; Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron). All three cards are pretty rare though Charles Lindbergh seems to show up more than the other two plus he has cards in other vintage and modern sets.

 

Earhart has been in the news recently when investigators and archeologists have come to the almost certainty that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan did not crash in to the Pacific Ocean as originally thought during her attempt to fly around the world in 1937 but instead landed near an atoll named Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Islands where they eventually died as castaways. This had been a theory for years after human bones and tools were found but an aluminum piece found in 1991 on the island was finally connected to her plane earlier this year. The piece matches a piece of aluminum used to patch her plane while she was in Miami in May of 1937.

 

When it comes to vintage cards you have to make the decision when you have a card in your sights, you either buy a card of any grade to add it to your collection or you pay big money to own a better condition/graded card.  When it comes to cards like this I would rather have a specific card in my collection and not worry about its condition. I can always add a better graded version later. This card cost me a whopping $6.05 shipped, so I am not going to complain. This card looks like it may have seen some time in the spokes of someone’s bike.