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The 5 Most Popular Babe Ruth Baseball Cards

Babe Ruth's place in baseball history is well documented. He sits at or near the top of the record books in several statistical categories. He is widely regarded by baseball historians as the most dominant hitter of his generation.

Babe Ruth's emergence as a baseball star coincided with the surge in popularity of the sport. While baseball experienced incredible growth in popularity, baseball cards also became increasingly popular. Often produced by tobacco and candy companies, cards were frequently packaged and included with another product.

Many Babe Ruth baseball cards were produced during his legendary career. Some of his cards are among the most recognized cards in the baseball card collecting hobby. All of the cards printed during Babe Ruth's career continue to maintain high values. A few Babe Ruth cards do stand out from the rest.

5. 1932 U.S. Caramel - The U.S. Caramel Company released a set of card featuring sports stars in 1932. Of the 32 athletes featured in the set, 27 were baseball stars. The popularity of Ruth combined with the difficulty of putting together a complete 1932 U.S. Caramel set has made this a popular card.

4. 1933 Goudey Sport Kings - In addition to its baseball release in 1933, Goudey released a set of cards featuring athletes from many sports. This set was a Who's Who of the sports world in the early 1930's. It included three baseball stars. Babe Ruth was one of these stars.

3. 1948 Leaf - Long after Ruth's career was over, Leaf produced a beautiful set of cards featuring modern stars such as Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, and Ted Williams. Leaf also capitalized on Ruth's continued popularity and chose to include him in the set. The Leaf set is a beautiful baseball card set. The Babe Ruth Leaf card makes the set only more attractive to a collector.

2. 1933 Goudey - The Goudey Gum company printed four Babe Ruth cards in 1933. These cards are often reproduced in modern sets as they are among the most recognizable Babe Ruth baseball cards ever printed. Because Babe Ruth was not included in the 1934 set, these cards carry even more value. Ruth did make an appearance in the 1935 Goudey set as a member of the Boston Braves.

1. 1914 Baltimore Sun - Babe Ruth's rookie card was printed by the Baltimore Sun newspaper in 1914. Ruth was photographed along with his Baltimore Orioles (then a minor league club) teammates as well as members of the Terrapins. Cards were printed in red or blue and displayed a team schedule on the back of the card.

There are only ten known Babe Ruth rookie cards in existence today. The Ruth rookie is considered the second-most valuable card on the market, trailing only the famous Honus Wagner card. The most recent sale of a 1914 Babe Ruth netted over $500,000 in auction.

Babe Ruth baseball cards have continued to be a popular choice with collectors. Those listed here only represent a small sample. There are many cards for collectors to choose from.

About the Author

Babe Ruth baseball cards
continue to be a popular choice in the card collecting community. Find some great Ruth
card collecting tips
and consult the
Babe Ruth card checklist
to learn more about these and other Babe Ruth baseball cards.

What is the best set of older baseball cards?

I want to buy a complete set of some older cards, like pre-2000's. Preferably 80's or 90's. What is the most valuable and or best looking set from these decades?

I honestly would save a bit more money and buy a set that dates pre-1980. Granted, there are a number of major rookie cards in the 1990's (Jeter, Ramirez, AROD, Chipper Jones, etc.) these sets were overproduced and everyone and their mother was collecting baseball cards in the 1990's!

Of course the sets from the 1950's are amazing. There aren't many Topps cards better looking than those issued in 1954, 1955 and/or 1956. Some of the Bowman sets, specifically the 1953 set is absolutely gorgeous! Unfortuntately, to buy one of these sets in EX-MT condition, you're looking at a price tag of at least $6,000.

I'd look into buying the 1975 Topps set. There are a number of great rookies (Jim Rice, Robin Yount, George Brett, Gary Carter, Fred Lynn and Keith Hernandez) as well as other noteable star cards. There's a Carl Yastrzemski , Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, Nolan Ryan, Dave Parker, Dave Winfield, Steve Carlton, Vida Blue, Pete Rose, Catfish Hunter and Mike Schmidt just to name a few!

Here's an example of a 1975 Topps baseball card:

http://deanscards.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/topps1975-500f.jpg

Hope this helps!

Crawfordsville baseball set for State

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 8:31 pm and is filed under bedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.