Vintage Card Of The Month: 1933 Goudey Indian Gum Geronimo

 

This month’s VCoM comes from the 1933 Goudey Indian Gum release. This 1933 Indian release is made up of 216 cards depicting famous Native Americans, tribes, events, cowboys and adventurers like Buffalo Bill Cody, Sitting Bull, George Custer and Four Bears.

The set was skip numbered and cards were released in packs of Goudey gum in 1933 as an incentive. If things were not difficult enough to catalog the release add in different backs. This set has various ink colors as well as “Series of …” backs (48, 96 and 192) plus a slight change in the wording too. This card is officially listed as #25c with a “Series of ninety-six” back.

The Geronimo card is in horrible condition with a hole dead-top center (you know some kid has this tacked to the wall), rounded corners, creases upon creases and based upon the giant stamp on the back the card the original owner apparently wanted everyone to know it was his card. The card is basically a filler card until I can get a better copy for my collection and it only cost $4 shipped so the condition is not a major factor.

This post comes with a little story, though at this point and time it appears to be a dead end. I have been collecting for roughly 25 years and while I have seen cards with names and all kinds of marks over the years but I have never come across a card where a kid stamped not just a name but an address too.

I decided to play Encyclopedia Brown and went on a search using the address and I was able to come up with Andrew listed in the 1940 census with his birthdate as 1924, meaning that he would have been 9 years old when he owned this card. I was unable to find an address for Andrew but the census listed his siblings and I was able to find a PO Box for his younger sister Martha still in Rome, New York.

I wrote a letter to Martha explaining that I was trying to get in contact with Andrew or anyone in his family who would like the card. I was hoping to return a treasured card to the Schuster family knowing that I would love to have any cards that were owned by my father or grandfather when they were kids.

It has now been a year and I have not had any responses from Martha or the family so I am figuring that this is a story that will remain unfinished.