BUCK ROGERS and TARZAN OF THE APES
1936 (R28)
NON-SPORTS CARDS ARE HEATING UP
An Obscure Set below the radar
Collectors are forever looking for an edge. As markets mature it becomes increasingly difficult to find one. That seems especially true with Sports cards. Walk through the National and all you need is a checkbook. Most dealers offer the same notable cards over and over. Decades have passed that have allowed collectors and dealers to dip deep and discover most any treasure that had not yet been discovered. I have long professed that Sports cards dealers are getting bored and their edge has disappeared. Everyone knows what everyone else has.
Non-Sports cards, on the other hand, have been getting their long-deserved attention, as Key cards from many different sets have been fetching huge values. There are so many Non-Sports sets that it would be a challenging task to try to even begin a list. As usual, begin with topics that interest you. In Non-Sports, no matter how obscure, there is likely a set for it.
Among the most popular topics are the usual standards, Adventurers, Superheroes, Presidents, Politics, History and everything else.
Today I am focusing on a set that is easily overlooked. It is titled 1936 Cartoon Adventures. I have passed by the set many times believing that if the set contained any notable cards, the notable names would have been on the set. I was wrong.
This set is really four different sets that make up a 48-card set. Among the four sets is a 24-card BUCK ROGERS subset, and an 8-card TARZAN OF THE APES subset. Certainly, doable by the numbers.
The complete set is broken down like this:
1. TAILSPIN TOMMY 8-Card subset.
2. TARZAN OF THE APES 8-Card subset.
3. BRONCHO BILL 8-Card subset.
4. BUCK ROGERS 24-card subset.
Without stepping too deep into the weeds, the idea of popular interest must be mentioned. Who the heck is TAILSPIN TOMMY and BRONCHO BILL? This is so important to the collecting hobby so listen up.
There were many household names from comics, radio and TV that are no longer part of the public memory. Many were great characters and stories, but they did not carry on. And the people who collected them and/or still do, are older. They collected them because they were memories of theirs. However, when these people pass there are really few left who will collect them. The market will shrink and likely eventually die except for a bookmark somewhere that acknowledges that they existed.
The people and characters that continue to flourish and stay popular are the brands and franchises that continue to be perpetuated by continued TV shows, movies, comic books, comic strips, and history. Think SUPERMAN, BATMAN, MARVEL, PRESIDENTS, HISTORICAL EVENTS. These are examples of themes that play repeatedly.
A new SUPERMAN movie is set to be released this July 11. Get it? A new generation of young people will again be exposed to Superman, which continues to make him live. And then those young people who become fans begin to collect, and then they begin to look for the earliest collectibles of that character. Pretty simple really!
So, here we are!
BUCK ROGERS and TARZAN OF THE APES, two of the greatest explorers and adventurers. Great stories. These characters are still alive. Many TV shows and movies have been made to continue their popularity. Maybe not recently, but the brands are alive and well, and one day another movie will emerge.
These cards are among the earliest depictions of both characters. I believe the 1932 set featuring Johnny Weissmuller was the first Tarzan, but they were photo images. This set features tremendous comic art from 1936. The Buck Rogers adventures first appeared in newspapers in 1929. The art is fine, and the colors are bold.
Although these sets, in my opinion, are sleepers, their populations are very low as well. It seems that between both PSA and SGC there is maybe an average of 15 of each of the cards that have been graded in total. Most graded cards are mid-tier in grades 3 to 5 with an odd 7 or 8 here and there. I have periodically searched, and raw cards can be found that look very nice, but they just don’t grade well. The images and colors are so attractive that one tends to overlook the technical issues they have. However, most of these cards have the usual round corners, missing paper, stains, creases, etc. But, as always, they do show up. Just got to keep looking.
The characters are legendary, the sets are great, the art is great and the populations of an average of 15 per card are amazing. If I were a betting man, I would believe that these sets have great upside as Non-Sports continue to thrive.
