(LOT 28)
1919-21 W514 #2 Babe Ruth Hand Cut PSA 2 Good – One of the Babe's Earliest Yankee Cards!
EARLY RUTH NY ISSUE!!! The earliest and largest of all the "W" strip card issues is the 1919-1921 W514 strips. A total of 120 baseball subjects are included in this monster-sized set, spearheaded by Babe Ruth and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson. It is Ruth's #2 subject that merits special attention, for it stands as one of his earliest known New York Yankee cards, presented here in a super-eye-pleasing PSA 2 holder. Finding any strip card with a numerical grade is a challenging task, with nearly two-thirds of the total PSA graded W514 Ruth's reflecting Authentic assessments. Issued in either 1920 or 1921, the Babe is donning his classic Red Sox flannels, with part of the lower border caption reading "HOME RUN KING – NEW YORK YANKEES".

So, the question remains: was this card issued during the 1920 season, the year after Ruth led the AL with 29 homers in his final 1919 Beantown campaign, or in 1921, the year after Ruth walloped a league-leading 54 dingers in his inaugural Big Apple season? While there is no definitive answer for whether it is a true 1920 or '21 issue, what we know with 100% accuracy is that the classic cartoon Ruth batting pose was taken from Charles Conlon's iconic 1916 Babe Ruth BoSox batting photo, placing it as the third known vintage Ruth card revealing him in a BoSox batting pose, along with Ruth's ultra-rare 1921 Frederick Foto and newly discovered 1921 Asahina Postcard. Highly underrated with vast investment potential, its imposing Conlon batting image and 1920/'21 issue date place it as one of the Sultan of Swat's most significant Yankee cards!

MIN BID $2,500
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