This is the story about a legendary ballplayer, a baseball card company, and thousands of hoodwinked, card-collecting kids. 

Nap Lajoie was an infielder for Cleveland and Philadelphia at the turn of the 19th century, with Ty Cobb as one of his rivals. Interestingly this story involves a baseball card of Lajoie that came nearly two decades after he last played in a Major League Baseball game.

The 1933 Goudey baseball card set is a legendary set, and even at that time, it was looked at with marvel, since most of the major baseball stars from the first quarter part of the century were represented. This set even had four different Babe Ruth cards.

It’s easy to see why young card collectors would fall in love with this set, considering the stars, the beauty and coloring of the cards, and the fact that each pack came with a piece of gum – for the first time in card history. (Goudey was actually a gum company that produced baseball cards to get kids to buy their gum).

The set is numbered from 1 to 240, but card No. 106, was nowhere to be found. They kept that card out of the set, just to trick kids into keep going back for more packs! 

Once people got together and realized this was the case, Goudey had a public relations disaster on their hands. (Fortunately for them, it would be another 75 years before social media was around to spread the word...). 

One year later, Goudey came out with their 1934 set. In that new set, they created the missing 1933 No. 106 Card, with superstar infielder Nap Lajoie as its subject. The 1934 card had a ’34 front, but the same card back as the 1933 set. 

The only way a card collector was able to obtain this card, however, was by sending away for it by mail. Customers would have to send in a request for Card No. 106, which for young kids during The Great Depression might have been a bridge too far. For the card collectors intent on filling that set, they would send away for the card, and get the card back along with a letter from the manufacturer.

The problem was – the Goudey team would either paper clip the card to the letter, or worse, staple it to the letter.

This means that the 1933 Goudey Nap Lajoie cards are rare to begin with, considering they weren’t released with the original set. And of the ones that did get mailed out, they had paper clip impressions or staple holes greatly affecting their condition. 

There are just 98 of these Lajoie rookie cards on PSA’s pop report, and none are in gem mint condition. (To be fair, though, there are just 14 total gems out of the 104,039 1933 Goudey cards graded by PSA).

This legend made Lajoie an even more appreciated baseball player in the second half of the century, as it has become one of the most famous short prints in sports card history. You can read more about this story, and great stories like this, in the book, “Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession.”