Vintage Card Of The Month: 1939 Churchman's Cigarettes Boxing Personalities Gene Tunney

This month’s VCoM is a boxing card from 1938 Churchman’s Cigarettes. Churchman’s Tobacco is an English company go back to the 1700s and in 1898 they began inserting cards in to their packs with football players (soccer) being the first subjects. They continued to include cards in their tobacco products until around 1940 or 1941, ceasing due to the war. Over the 40 year period the cards included footballers, cricket players, golfers, tennis players, boxers and even got Babe Ruth in to a 1929 set.

My brother was in the Navy and in the mid-90s he was stationed in England and he found a card shop in the town he was living in that he enjoyed visiting. The owner wanted Michael Jordan cards and I was just beginning my vintage collection so my brother and I worked a deal where I would ship him Jordan cards and the owner of the shop would ship me tobacco era cards. In one of those shipments he sent a nice selection of the 1938 Churchman’s Boxing cards, which this Tunney card was included.

Gene Tunney was a fighter bewtween 1915 and 1928 and in that 13 career he fought 85 fights going 65-1-1-1 with 48 KOs, the other 17 fights were Newspaper Decisions (A no decision bout by record but a decision is made by a newspaper) and do not count for or against his record. During his time he was the American Light Heavyweight Champion between 1922-23 and World Heavyweight Champion between 1926-28.

If you are wondering, yes now I regret sending all of the Michael Jordan cards. Every Jordan card that I pulled for a 2-3 year period were shipped to my brother, so figure probably 100 or so cards that I would have loved to have in my collection. Now had I received the 1929 Babe Ruth card I would have been fine but alas no luck.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1938 Churchman's Boxing Personalities Max Baer

 This month’s card is from the 1938 Churchman's Boxing Personalities set, a tobacco era product that was included in packages of Churchman Tobacco products in England. The cards are standard for the time period, 1 ½ x 2 ¾ in size with the typical white border. The set consisted of 50 boxers including a number of champions and Hall of Famers like Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Gene Tunney.

 

Baer began his boxing career in 1929 and by 1930 he was fighting for the title of Pacific Coast Champion, a fight he won. Sadly his opponent, Frankie Campbell, died the next day from injuries he sustained during the fight, an event that greatly affected Baer for the rest of his life.

 

In 1934 he defeated Primo Carnera for the Heavyweight Championship, which he held for one year. In 1941 he won the White Heavyweight Championship, a title that was created after Joe Louis’ promoter refused to give Baer a rematch for the Heavyweight Championship. He eventually retired in early 1941 with a career record of 71-13-0 with 53 KOs. He has been inducted in to various Boxing Hall of Fames as well as the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 1998 he was ranked among the “50 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time” by Ring Magazine.

 

His son Max Baer Jr. went on to have a successful acting career and is probably best known for playing Jethro Bodine on the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.