Ever since first discovering the Anthracite Baking Company cards in 2022, I’ve kept an eye out for more. And after editor Rich Mueller of Sports Collectors Daily pointed me to a newspaper article that confirmed their creation, I wrote about them over on his site, hoping that would lead to other collectors mentioning ones they had. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. These have been very difficult to find  — not only for purchase, but even knowledge of their existence from other collectors has been scarce.

In short, these were 1929 Kashin Photo Cards of baseball players that were sold in packs of 25. Unlike many cards from the time period, these weren’t sold with items like candy or tobacco. They were standalone cards that were sold on their own. The term ‘cards’ is a loose one. They are slightly oversized, measuring about 3 1/4″ wide by 4 1/2″ tall, and are printed on a thinner stock.

Kashin Publishing created the cards, but they were quickly used by other companies as a means of advertising. While ones with the names of theaters had been seen previously, cards with stamps bearing the name of the Anthracite Baking Company were not really known. At the time I found a group of three, I could find only one mention of them prior to that online.

Soon after writing about the trio I acquired, a fourth, pitcher Tom Zachary, was listed on eBay, which I also purchased. I’m now happy to report I’ve found a fifth.

This Ralph Kress appeared for sale, also on eBay, months ago. I just haven’t gotten around to writing about it. This is my fifth Kashin card with the Anthracite Baking overprint.

Kress isn’t a big name, but he was a solid player and a strong hitter, to be sure. He batted over .300 in three of his first four full seasons (make it four out of five, if you count his limited appearances in 1927, where he batted .304 in 27 plate appearances). He also hit .302 in 1938 and was a career .286 hitter. Three times he collected more than 100 runs batted in over 14 major league seasons with the Browns, White Sox, Senators, Tigers, and Giants. His Kashin card pictures him with the Browns.

As a small bonus, Kress’ 1929 Kashin card also appears to be his rookie. He played in only seven games in 1927 and PSA has not graded any 1928 cards of him.

Why are there so few of the Anthracite Baking cards? Mostly because they were money to the bearers of them.

Anthracite Baking had a $1,000 giveaway of prizes surrounding the cards. $125 in prizes was given to the five consumers that collected the most cards. The other $875 was seemingly given in five-cent redemptions per card. The math tells us that Anthracite Baking should have given away 17,500 cards, giving us a population of 175 per card if each card was printed equally (technically, that could be slightly off due to players in the set being replaced by Babe Ruth, but that’s another matter).

That’s a low enough population as it is, but given how few have seemed to survive, my belief is that they were likely discarded after redemption. Some companies running these sorts of promotions did allow the bearer of the cards to keep them and simply punched a hole in them or marked them with a stamp, indicating they were redeemed. But none of the five I have bear any such mark.

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