W590 Jack Johnson

One of my collecting friends recently picked up this W590 Jack Johnson.

W590 is a strip card set featuring multiple sports with black and white photos instead of colorized drawings like many other strip sets from the 20's.  The set is dated between 1925 and 1931 with multiple printings between those years.  There are team change variations due to trades and some guys have a description change to their status in their sport. 

Various sports represented in the W590 set

Baseball is the most represented sport in the set with about 40 players represented.  There are also athletes from wrestling, boxing, football, horse racing, tennis, golf, swimming, cycling, a strongman and some non-sport personalities as well.

One of the most sought after cards in the set is the Red Grange football card considered his rookie card.  Also the rookie card of golfer Walter Hagen is in the set. Within the baseball checklist, there are super stars Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Lou Gehrig leading the way.

The complete checklist is not currently complete as just a couple years ago three new boxers were discovered from the set.  It stands to reason there may still be more uncatalogued cards to be found. 


Well, I wanted to highlight the boxing card of Jack Johnson in this post as that is the card my friend was able to pick up.  He ended up getting it for a steal to be honest.  A seller on eBay with zero feedback had it listed as a Buy It Now (BIN) for $25 but nobody pulled the trigger.  Likely due to the zero feedback.  He then relisted it in an auction format starting at $1.00 and my friend placed a little $7.00 snipe on it.  Well, that was enough to win it in the end. 

 

When he got the card in hand, he examined it with a loupe and has determined it to be the real deal.  Even in the low grade it's in, it was a great deal for this fairly hard to find HOF boxer Jack Johnson card. 

It was printed after he lost his championship and it used to say "Ex-Champion" where there is paper loss in front of "Heavyweight" and under where it should say "JACK". 

Well I hope you enjoy the card as much as I do.

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.