This
month’s Vintage Card of the Month is my 1933 World Wide Gum Mark Koenig, which
is the Canadian version of the 1933 Goudey cards. World Wide Gum and Goudey Gum
had a similar agreement like the one that O-Pee-Chee had with Topps later in the 1950s. The
card fronts are the exact same design, even down to the Goudey Gum copyright
logo along the bottom left corner. There is a difference on the card backs,
there are laws in Canada that require manufacturers to print text in both
English and French so to keep Koenig’s bio short enough to print it in both languages
his bio from the Goudey version was abbreviated to only five sentences instead
of three paragraphs.
By
the time 1933 rolled around Koenig has already been in the league 9 seasons and
was with his third team. The Short Stop is probably best known for his first five
seasons with the New York Yankees from 1925-1930 where he was part of the 1927
Murder’s Row that went on to win the World Series, batting second in front of
Ruth and Gehrig, he led the team in batting average through the 1927
postseason.
Over
his 12 year career with the Yankees, Tigers, Cubs, Reds and Giants he made it
the World Series 5 times, winning twice in 1927 and 1928 with the Yankees. He
had a .279 batting average and even pitched in three games while he was with
the Tigers in 1930 and 1931, going 1-3 over 16.0 innings and an 8.44 ERA. Mark
Koenig didn’t have a Hall of Fame career but he had a career to be proud of,
outside of his league leading errors, and you can never argue with a couple of
World Series titles.
The card is in Good condition, the front colors are still bright and pretty well centered but the card is well worn and the corners are fuzzy and rounded. The color on the back is well worn and faded plus there is a stain near the bottom right corner.
