The 1935 Schutter-Johnson ‘I’m Going to Be’ set isn’t one that is on many collectors’ radars. If you’re a collector of pre-war cards, you may be well familiar with the baseball card in the set shown here. But other than the extremely rare and shortprinted strongman card that was the key to a redemption program, I doubt many collectors could point to too many other cards in the mostly non-sports set.
Even the exact date of issue for this set has been called into question. While it is most commonly referred to as a 1935 series, it is also sometimes dated simply to the 1930s with the exact production year more vague.
The strange ‘I’m Going to Be’ name is related to the purpose of the cards, which was to highlight different occupations to which children could aspire. After the scarce strongman card which usually sells for more than $20,000 on the rare occasion it is seen, the baseball card is the most desirable one in the set, starting around $50 or so. Commons in the set typically start around $10-$15.
Classified as a later gum/candy issue (R72) in the American Card Catalog, I’ve had the baseball card in my collection but never really had much interest in the others. While a pre-war series, my focus is less on 1930s gum cards and more on earlier tobacco and candy issues. But I found something in a recent auction that piqued my interest.
I’ve always been a sucker for a good print error and these were the first such ones I’d seen before in this rare set. The more desirable baseball card isn’t in this grouping, but given the rare nature of the error, I would have purchased these if they featured any cards in the set, quite honestly.

The backs on these cards are printed normally. The fronts, however, are a different story. While the normal cards like the baseball card shown above were printed in full color, these include only red and yellow ink. And because the titles of the occupation were printed in a blue or other dark ink, they are completely missing from these print error cards.
The first one is probably my favorite. I’ve been collecting more and more aviation stuff, mostly related to Amelia Earhart and the Wright Brothers. While this aviation card doesn’t feature them, it’s still a very cool looking card of early airplanes.
The second card depicts a hunter in a snow scene while the third is a drum major. All three of the cards have the same ink issues.
Cards missing ink colors, as a whole, are not an uncommon occurrence. While generally quite rare, some sets (such as 1960 Fleer Football) seem to be full of them. But the type of error, one that features cards with missing ink, is not one that is uncommon. Printed in large quantities, it is also a somewhat common error in T206 cards, too.
However, I have not yet come across any others from this set. While others likely exist, this specific error in this set seems to be an uncommon one.
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