1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #53

A penny pack that changed the hobby

The Goudey Gum Company was started in 1919 by Enos Gordon Goudey (1863-1946), a native of Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia, who had worked for Beemans before opening a factory in Boston. In 1933, in the depths of the Depression, the company launched a baseball series it sold as 'Big League Chewing Gum.' Each pack held a slab of gum and a picture card, and the set is generally described as the first baseball issue packaged with bubble gum.

The cards were a big step up from what came before. At about 2 3/8 by 2 7/8 inches they were much larger than the narrow tobacco and candy cards of earlier decades, they were printed on thicker stock, and the extra room allowed a real biography on the back. The fronts were bold color illustrations of players against solid red, yellow, blue and green backgrounds, with the player's name in the background and, on most cards, a small red 'Big League Chewing Gum' banner along the bottom.

Goudey printed the set on ten sheets of 24 cards each and released them through 1933. The issue held 239 cards that year. A 240th, #106 Napoleon Lajoie, was not in packs at all; it was produced in 1934 after collectors complained and was mailed to those who asked for it.

To protect its artwork, Goudey registered each card with the United States Copyright Office the way a publisher registers a book: a two-dollar fee, an application, a notarized affidavit of printing and two copies of the card. The registration cards name the illustrator, usually Saul M. Arkin or Elmer Crowell, and sometimes both. The company's files surfaced in 1969 and were quickly scattered among collectors.

Four Babes in one set

Ruth got four cards in the 1933 set, numbers 53, 144, 149 and 181, more than any other player. Three of them share one picture. Card #144, the 'batting pose' or 'Full Body Ruth,' shows him full length; #53 and #149 crop that same image from the waist up and differ only in background color, yellow for #53 and red for #149. The fourth, #181, is the only truly different Ruth in the set: seated, bat in hand, against green.

The backs vary too. Card #53 shares its back text with #149, while #144 and #181 tell the story in different words, and the name 'George Herman (Babe) Ruth' is printed larger on those two.

Collectors and the leading grading service agree on the pecking order. The #53 is considered the toughest of the four, followed closely by the red #149 in the identical pose. The full-length #144 was printed twice on its sheet and is more plentiful overall.

Ruth at 38

When the cards reached candy counters, Ruth was 38 and in his 14th season with the New York Yankees. He was coming off the 1932 World Series, where on October 1 in Chicago he hit the fifth-inning home run that became known as the 'called shot.' Whether he pointed to center field before the pitch is still argued.

In 1933 he hit .301 with 34 home runs, 104 runs batted in and a league-leading 114 walks. On July 6, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Athletics manager Connie Mack put him in right field for the first All-Star Game, and Ruth hit the first home run in the game's history, a two-run shot off Bill Hallahan in the third inning that helped the American League win 4-2. In the final game of the season, as a publicity stunt, he pitched a complete game and won.

The money in baseball was shrinking with everything else. Ruth's salary fell from $75,000 in 1932 to $52,000 in 1933, and to $35,000 in 1934. The Yankees finished second, seven games behind Washington. Outside the ballpark, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office on March 4 and closed the nation's banks the next day; a penny pack of gum and a picture card was an affordable distraction.

The cards caught Ruth near the end. He played his last full season with the Yankees in 1934, was traded to the Boston Braves on February 26, 1935, and retired that June. In 1936 he was one of the first five players elected to the Hall of Fame. He died on August 16, 1948.

From under $20,000 to $4.2 million

The most famous #53 belonged to Dr. Thomas Newman, a Tampa neurologist who collected for about 40 years and called his cards his 'paper babies.' He bought the card for less than $20,000 in the mid-1990s. It is the only #53 PSA has graded Mint 9. Newman died of COVID-19 in January 2021 at 73, and his family sent the collection to auction that summer.

The Ruth drew 76 bids, the last at 5:40 a.m. Eastern on a Sunday in July 2021, and sold for $4,212,000 including the 20 percent buyer's premium. In the same sale a PSA 9 copy of the green #181 brought $1,272,000. Newman's whole collection sold for $21.5 million.

Lower grades tell the story of the market's rise. In April 2016 a PSA 8 copy of #53 sold at auction for $191,200, a record for the card at the time, as one of the finest 1933 Goudey sets was sold card by card for more than $1.17 million. In May 2022 a PSA 8 from the collection of the late Manny Gordon, a New York diamond trader who began collecting in 2007, sold at auction for $942,000.

At the grade of this entry, PSA 7, a sales tracker recorded sales of $132,000 in February 2022, $96,000 in August 2023, $115,900 in August 2025 and $158,600 in July 2026. Another record of auction results lists $113,160 as the most recent PSA 7 price.

What to look for

A #53 shows Ruth from the waist up against a yellow background. The same image on a red background is #149, a different card. The full-length version is #144. The card comes from sheet 5, so it should carry the red 'Big League Chewing Gum' banner at the bottom; the cards printed on sheets 8, 9 and 10 do not.

The cards came packed with gum, and gum residue and creases are common. A PSA 7 (Near Mint) is a high grade for this card: PSA's population report counts 21 copies at that grade, with 15 at PSA 8 and a single PSA 9. At the other end, PSA 1 copies have sold at auction for under $10,000, including $8,553 in April 2026.

Because three of Ruth's 1933 cards share one picture, the number and background color matter more than the pose. The yellow #53 has generally sold at a premium to the red #149, though one guide notes that across all three major graders the two survive in similar numbers.

One of the Big Three

The 1933 Goudey set is often grouped with the T206 tobacco set and 1952 Topps as one of the hobby's 'Big Three.' PSA's own set profile calls it 'almost indisputably acknowledged as the first meaningful gum card release,' and adds that to many collectors the cards are 'the first baseball cards, period.'

Goudey never repeated the success. The 1934 set had 96 cards and no Ruth at all, and PSA's profile notes that the company's later products never fully built on the 1933 groundwork before World War II ended its run of innovations. Most unreleased cards, printing plates and company archives were thrown away in the 1960s.

Ruth's four cards remain the core of the set, and the yellow #53 sits at the top of them. Its $4.2 million record belongs to a single copy; the card in PSA 7 trades in a far lower range, but it is the same image that a Depression-era child could find for a penny.

The numbers

1933 season (NYY)

137 G, 459 AB, 97 R, 138 H, 21 2B, 3 3B, 34 HR, 104 RBI, 114 BB, .301 BA, .442 OBP, .582 SLG, 176 OPS+. All-Star.

1933 AL ranks

1st in walks (114), 2nd in home runs (34), 3rd in slugging (.582) and OPS (1.023)

1933 pitching

1 G, 1-0, complete game, 9 IP, 5.00 ERA

1932 season (NYY)

133 G, 457 AB, 120 R, 156 H, 41 HR, 137 RBI, 130 BB, .341 BA, .489 OBP, .661 SLG, 201 OPS+. Sixth in MVP voting.

1933 salary

$52,000, down from $75,000 in 1932

Career (1914-1935)

22 seasons, 2,503 G, 2,873 H, 714 HR, 2,214 RBI, 2,062 BB, .342 BA, .474 OBP, .690 SLG

Career pitching

94-46, 2.28 ERA, 488 strikeouts

Hall of Fame

Inducted 1936, in the first class

Timeline

1. Feb 6, 1895

   George Herman Ruth is born in Baltimore.

2. 1919

   Enos Gordon Goudey founds the Goudey Gum Company in Boston.

3. Oct 1, 1932

   Ruth hits the 'called shot' home run in Game 3 of the World Series at Wrigley Field.

4. 1933

   Goudey issues its 'Big League Chewing Gum' set on ten 24-card sheets; #53 is printed on sheet 5.

5. Jul 6, 1933

   Ruth hits the first home run in All-Star Game history at Comiskey Park.

6. 1934

   Goudey produces card #106, Napoleon Lajoie, and mails it to collectors who ask.

7. Feb 26, 1935

   The Yankees trade Ruth to the Boston Braves.

8. 1936

   Ruth is elected to the Hall of Fame in its first class.

9. Aug 16, 1948

   Ruth dies at 53.

10. 1969

    The Goudey company files are discovered and dispersed among collectors.

11. 1995

    Around the mid-1990s, Dr. Thomas Newman buys the lone PSA 9 #53 for less than $20,000.

12. Apr 14, 2016

    A PSA 8 #53 sells at auction for $191,200, a record for the card at the time.

13. Jan 2021

    Dr. Thomas Newman dies of COVID-19 at 73.

14. Jul 11, 2021

    The Newman PSA 9 #53 sells at auction for $4,212,000 after 76 bids.

15. May 2022

    A PSA 8 #53 from the Manny Gordon collection sells at auction for $942,000.

16. Jul 12, 2026

    A sales tracker records a PSA 7 #53 sale at $158,600.

The world in 1933

• Jan 30, 1933

  'The Lone Ranger' debuts on American radio.

• Mar 2, 1933

  'King Kong' premieres in New York City.

• Mar 4, 1933

  Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in as the 32nd president; the next day he declares a bank holiday.

• Mar 12, 1933

  Roosevelt gives the first of his radio 'Fireside Chats.'

• May 27, 1933

  The Century of Progress world's fair opens in Chicago.

• Jul 6, 1933

  The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played at Comiskey Park.

• Oct 7, 1933

  The New York Giants beat the Washington Senators to win the World Series, 4 games to 1.

• Dec 5, 1933

  The Twenty-first Amendment is ratified, ending Prohibition.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #53 is number 17 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (4 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Cards #53 and #149 use the identical picture of Ruth; the only difference is a yellow background versus a red one.
• The lone PSA 9 #53 was bought for less than $20,000 in the mid-1990s and sold for $4,212,000 in 2021.
• Goudey registered every card with the U.S. Copyright Office like a book, paying two dollars and sending two copies of each card.
• The year this card came out, Ruth hit the first home run in All-Star Game history.
• In the last game of the 1933 season, Ruth pitched a complete game and won it.
• Ruth's salary fell from $75,000 in 1932 to $52,000 in 1933 as the Depression squeezed baseball.
• The 1933 set's card #106 was never in packs; Goudey mailed it to collectors who wrote in during 1934.