1933 Goudey Jimmie Foxx #154

A star printed twice

The Goudey Gum Company, founded in Boston in 1919 by Enos Gordon Goudey, launched its 'Big League Chewing Gum' cards in 1933, and the set is generally described as the first baseball issue packaged with bubble gum. The cards were larger than the tobacco cards before them, 2 3/8 by 2 7/8 inches, printed on thicker stock, and illustrated in bold color. Goudey printed them on ten sheets of 24. The 1933 issue holds 239 cards; #106 Napoleon Lajoie was produced only in 1934 and mailed to collectors who asked.

Goudey went heavy on stars, repeating several of them: four Babe Ruths, three Joe Cronins, and two cards each for Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Carl Hubbell and Jimmie Foxx. Foxx appears on #29 and #154. Both use the same portrait, and both spell his first name 'Jimmy' instead of 'Jimmie.'

No one has explained why Goudey repeated the Foxx card. One hobby writer argued that the image was overused: Goudey ran it twice in 1933, again as the #1 card of its 1934 set, and in close-up in the 1935 4-in-1 set, and the same picture appeared in the 1933 Eclipse Import set as well.

Double X

James Emory Foxx was born October 22, 1907, in rural Sudlersville, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, to tenant farmers Dell and Mattie Foxx. At Sudlersville High School he played soccer, ran track and played baseball, and in 1923 he set state records in the 220- and 80-yard dashes. In April 1924 Frank 'Home Run' Baker, the former Athletics star then managing the Class D Easton Farmers, signed him for $100 a month. That July, Connie Mack bought his contract for the Athletics for $2,000.

Foxx got his first major league hit on May 1, 1925, at 17. He became the anchor of the Athletics teams that won the World Series in 1929 and 1930. In 1932 he hit 58 home runs with 169 RBI and a .364 average and won the MVP award; his 438 total bases that year are still among the most ever.

The writers called him 'Double X' and 'the Beast.' Over the 1930s no one hit more home runs than his 415. He became the youngest player to reach 500 home runs, at 32 years and 338 days in 1940, a record that stood until Alex Rodriguez broke it in 2007, and he retired with 534, second only to Ruth at the time.

The Triple Crown summer

Foxx started 1933 slowly, hitting .301 with seven home runs by June 6. Then he caught fire: 13 home runs, 37 runs and an average over .380 in 31 June games. On August 14 he hit for the cycle and drove in nine runs, then an American League record. He finished leading the league in home runs (48), RBI (163) and batting average (.356), the ninth Triple Crown in major league history, and won his second straight MVP award.

He also collected 403 total bases, becoming only the second player, after Lou Gehrig, with 400 in back-to-back seasons. He was on the American League roster for the first All-Star Game, played at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 6, 1933. His Athletics went 79-72-1 and finished third.

The Athletics could not keep him. After the 1934 season, in which he hit 44 home runs, he was hit in the head by a pitch in an exhibition game in Winnipeg and suffered sinus problems for the rest of his career. That winter he toured Japan with Ruth and Gehrig. After 1935, Mack sold Foxx and pitcher Johnny Marcum to the Boston Red Sox for $150,000. In Boston, Foxx won a third MVP award in 1938 with 50 home runs and 175 RBI, still a Red Sox record for RBI.

Telling #154 from #29

The number on the back is the reliable difference. Beyond that, sources disagree. PSA says that even though the two cards are virtually identical on the front, each is distinguishable in color and image detail. A prewar-card writer says the opposite: same image, same background color, even the same back biography, with no discernible difference found between them.

PSA considers #29 the tougher card. Both suffer the set's typical problems: toning, and ink bleeding onto the reverse from uncut sheets that were stacked before the ink was dry. A 2018 review of PSA's population counts found the two Foxx cards had similar numbers of graded copies.

PSA's census for #154 lists 40 copies at EX-MT 6, with 54 graded higher: 37 at NM 7, 13 at NM-MT 8 and the rest at half grades. No #154 has been graded MINT 9 or GEM-MT 10. About 790 copies have been graded in all.

Prices and legacy

For a card of the year's MVP and Triple Crown winner, #154 trades well below the set's Ruth and Gehrig cards. In PSA's auction record, PSA 6 copies sold for $2,760 in August 2021 and between $3,795 and $4,618 from 2023 to 2024. PSA 7 copies brought $6,432 to $9,101 from 2021 to 2024, and a poor PSA 1 sold for $457 in May 2026.

The top grade is volatile. PSA 8 copies sold for $35,264 in January 2022, $103,158 in May 2022 and $39,907 in February 2024, the middle figure the highest reported sale for the card.

Foxx's later life was hard. He played until 1945, managed the Fort Wayne Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1952, and was broke by 1958 after bad investments. The Tom Hanks character Jimmy Dugan in the 1992 film 'A League of Their Own' is loosely based on him. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1951 and died in Miami on July 21, 1967, at 59, after choking on food at dinner with his brother.

The numbers

1933 season

149 G, 573 AB, 125 R, 204 H, 37 2B, 9 3B, 48 HR (led MLB), 163 RBI (led MLB), 96 BB, .356 BA (led AL), .449 OBP, .703 SLG (led AL), 403 TB (led MLB). Triple Crown; AL MVP; All-Star.

1932 season

154 G, 151 R, 213 H, 58 HR (led MLB), 169 RBI (led MLB), .364 BA, .749 SLG, 438 TB. AL MVP.

1934 season

150 G, 180 H, 44 HR, 130 RBI, .334 BA. All-Star.

1938 season

149 G, 197 H, 50 HR, 175 RBI (led MLB), .349 BA (led AL). AL MVP.

Career (1925-1945)

20 seasons, 2,317 G, 2,646 H, 534 HR, 1,922 RBI, 1,751 R, .325 BA, .428 OBP, .609 SLG

Honors

3 MVP awards (1932, 1933, 1938), 9 All-Star selections, 2 World Series titles (1929, 1930)

Hall of Fame

Elected 1951 on 179 of 226 ballots

Timeline

1. Oct 22, 1907

   Jimmie Foxx is born in Sudlersville, Maryland.

2. 1919

   Enos Gordon Goudey founds the Goudey Gum Company in Boston.

3. Apr 1924

   Frank 'Home Run' Baker signs Foxx to the Easton Farmers for $100 a month.

4. Jul 1924

   Connie Mack buys Foxx's contract for the Athletics for $2,000.

5. May 1, 1925

   Foxx gets his first major league hit, at 17.

6. 1932

   Foxx hits 58 home runs and wins his first MVP award.

7. 1933

   Goudey issues its set with Foxx on #29 and #154, both spelled 'Jimmy.'

8. Jul 6, 1933

   Foxx is on the American League roster for the first All-Star Game.

9. Aug 14, 1933

   Foxx hits for the cycle and drives in nine runs, then an AL record.

10. 1933

    Foxx wins the Triple Crown and his second MVP award.

11. 1934

    Goudey reuses the Foxx image as card #1 of its 1934 set.

12. 1938

    Foxx hits 50 home runs with 175 RBI for Boston and wins a third MVP.

13. 1951

    Foxx is elected to the Hall of Fame.

14. Jul 21, 1967

    Foxx dies in Miami at 59.

15. May 22, 2022

    A PSA 8 #154 sells at auction for $103,158, the card's highest reported price.

The world in 1933

• 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.'

• Apr 19, 1933

  The United States officially goes off the gold standard.

• Jun 6, 1933

  The first drive-in movie theater opens near Camden, New Jersey.

• Jul 6, 1933

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

• Oct 7, 1933

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

• Oct 17, 1933

  Albert Einstein arrives in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

• Dec 5, 1933

  The Twenty-first Amendment is ratified, ending Prohibition.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this card every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

No completed sale at PSA 6 is on record yet. The same card at other grades:

Every grade and recorded sale for this card

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 Jimmie Foxx #154 is number 86 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 (26 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Both of Foxx's 1933 Goudey cards spell his name 'Jimmy,' not 'Jimmie.'
• Goudey used the same Foxx picture on two cards in 1933 and again as the first card of its 1934 set.
• Foxx won the Triple Crown in 1933, the same year his two Goudey cards were in packs.
• On August 14, 1933, Foxx hit for the cycle and drove in nine runs, then an American League record.
• Connie Mack bought Foxx's contract in 1924 for $2,000 and sold him, with a pitcher, to Boston for $150,000 after 1935.
• Foxx was the youngest player to 500 home runs until Alex Rodriguez in 2007.
• The Tom Hanks character in 'A League of Their Own' is loosely based on Foxx, who really did manage a women's pro team in 1952.