Sugar Ray Robinson is widely regarded as the best pound for pound fighters of all time. So it isn’t surprising that boxing card collectors would consider his rookie card to be essential for any complete boxing card collection. Sugar Ray’s most commonly cited rookie is the iconic 1948 Leaf. But wait, there is also D. Cummings & Sons card that PSA dates as 1947? And that small Topps card, Kiddy’s Favourites Popular boxer, and now SGC lists another Ray Robinson card from the A & J Donaldson multisport set “Sports Favourites” as 1948.
So which one is it?
The article will break down the dates each of these sets to determine which has the holds the title of Sugar Ray Robinson’s true rookie card.
Set 1. D. Cummings & Son – Famous Fighters
The purportedly 1947 D. Cummings & Son “Famous Fighters Swop Cards” is a 64-card boxing set from a manufacturer based out of Glasgow, Scotland. The cards were caricatures with a distinctive orangy/red background that people either seem to love or hate. The set is notable as it was thought to contain some of the key rookies of top boxers such as Joe Walcott, Rocky Graziano and, of course, Sugar Ray Robinson.
You can find English auction houses listing this set as 1949; however, PSA dated the set as 1947. If PSA were correct, then this card would definitely be Sugar Robinson’s rookie; however, unfortunately PSA got this date completely wrong.
How do we know?
It’s actually not that difficult to figure that PSA got the date wrong just by reading the back of the cards. For example, the second card in the series Freddy Mills describes when he won the Light-heavy-weight Championship on July 26, 1948. Now unless, the Cummings & Sons had some psychic powers that allowed them to peer into the future, one has to concede that the set had to have come out well after this date.
There are several other cards that reference events that occurred in 1948 so it is likely that with the time it would take to create all 64 caricatures as well as print and issue the set, 1949 is a very reasonable estimate of the set release date. In fact, SGC now lists the issue date for this set as 1949. Well done, SGC!
Set 2. Leaf Gum Co.
In 1948, Leaf Gum company issued what was to become one of the most iconic sports sets ever produced simply called Leaf 1948. Three sets of cards with similar styles were issued for baseball, football and boxing.
We know its 1948 because it says “Copyright 1948” on the back. Pretty straightforward. But can we refine this issue date even further? The back of the Sugar Ray Cards card states that he had a record of 89 wins. His 89th win was on June 28th so the cards must have been created after this date. He fought again on September 23 1948 so it suggests that the cards were at least created between this time period. Tony Zale’s card also references his fight with Michel Cerdan on September 21, 1948. Consequently, these cards likely were issued, at earliest, in the late fall of 1948 and possibly (probably?) into 1949.
Set 3. A & J Donaldson – Sports Favourites
The publisher A. & J. Donaldson, who like Cummings was based out of Glasgow, is believed to have first issued a set of 30 Footballer cards in 1946. This issue was the first of a series that came to be known as the set entitle “Sports Favourites”. The cards were an artist’s exaggerated caricature illustrations of footballers with “Big Heads” and consisted mostly of Scottish players. This first issue did not include the publisher’s name or address, but did include distinctive yellow patches on the back.
These Big Heads were some of the first sport cards to be issued in the UK after the war. After about four series issues of the “Big Heads” footballers, Donaldson decided to change its approach and portray the players with regular-sized heads, which became affectionately known as the “Wee Heads”. The Wee Heads Sports Favorites set when it was finished, contained a massive 534 subjects from various sports including Footballers, Cricketers, Boxers, Speedway Riders and various other Athletes (although several numbers were not issued in the original set).
The cards were issued to children in booklets of 8 or 9 cards as staple holes can be identified in many of the cards. The set was also released over multiple years, with several printings and variations, making dating it fairly challenging to date or even catalogue. However, there has been some great work done to identify the numerous variants and backs of the set via a specialized checklist from the Football Cartophilic Info exchange.
The Donaldson Wee Heads set from 250 -299 contained 49 boxers including stars such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pep, Joe Louis, Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale, Joe Louis, Joe Walcott and Jake La Motta. There is also a card Joe Louis and of the long retired Jack Dempsey.
So you might be wondering, why you haven’t heard much about this set before? Part of the reason is that the Donaldson Set was incorrectly labeled 1953 by PSA. SGC followed suit and also labeled the set as 1953 (although SGC has recently updated its set date to 1948). So it was only natural for collectors to think the set was issued in 1953; however, this date is not even close although it’s true that some of the high number cards were issued post-1950, the vast majority of the set is 1948 or before.
The Ray Robinson card number 280 only mentions 1946; however, there are several other cards that give us some clues as to when the set was issued. First, the back of Rocky Graziano card number 262 states that he “Has had 58 contests wining 46”. The period that Graziano July 16, 1947 and April 5th, 1948 suggesting the set was created between these dates. Willy Pep’s card No. 265 claims that he had 119 fights and has defended his title 5 times. Pep’s 119th fight occurred on December 30th, 1947 and his sixth title defense occurred on February 24th, 1948. There are multiple other cards to support this time period including Joe Walcott card which mentions that he will fight Joe Louis again in the near future (which he did in June 1948), Cliff Anderson’s birthday and Peter Brander who “will compete in the 1948 Olympics.” It is evident that the cards were created in very early 1948, likely January and issued shortly after. This also the date that the experts on the Football Cartophillic Info Exchange have settled on (although high number parts of the sets were issued later).
Set 4. Topps: Magic Photos 1948
Another set that is widely cited as being released in 1948 and contains Ray Robinson was Topps’ Magic Photos. The 252 multi-subject set contains magic photo cards that were intended to go into an album. The cards are quite small measuring less than 1 inch wide and just over 1 and 1/2 inches tall. There were multiple series issued but the boxing subjects are contained in Series A.
The set appears to have come out in latter half of 1948 The cards were created so that kids would first read a trivia question on the back. The answer would be subject of the photo of the blank photo that would reveal itself when exposed to sunlight.
Tony Zale card number 17 asks:
Name the middleweight champion who lost and regained crown from the same opponent?
Zale lost to Rocky Graziano in 1947 and regained the title in June 1948: however, Zale’s last fight was against Michael Cerden in September of 1948. Incidentally Michael Cerden is also in the set and described as the most likely contender to face Tony Zale suggesting that the fight in September hadn’t occurred yet. As a result, the set was most likely first completed between June and September 1948.
Set 5. Kiddy’s Favourite Popular Boxers
I have recently added this set to potential Sugar Ray Robinson rookie cards. The set was produced in Glasgow Scotland and the company issued multiple sets of subjects including boxers, international footballers, club footballers, speedway racers, and cricketers. The subjects are depicted as caricatures of prominent boxers of the eras. According to packaging, there were supposed to be 52 cards, though only 50 cards are known. Collectors who completed the set (52 cards) could send in the cards and receive a pair of boxing gloves. It wasn’t uncommon for companies to short print or even exclude cards to avoid having to provide the prize.
Until recently, I had, like most collectors, taken PSA’s dating of this set as 1950 as accurate. However, it’s pretty obvious that it was issued much earlier in 1948. The football cartophilic info exchange also lists this set as 1948 and the fact that there is booklet covers that indicate this set was issued the same time as other in the series suggests that this date is correct.
There are several examples on the back of the cards that indicate 1948, for example “Harry Hughes won the title from Danny Woods last year.” The date of the fight was October 29th, 1947. Card #11 Luciano Paoletti states that he “lost narrowly to Tommy Armour this year”. The fight was on May 5, 1948. Rocky Graziano is described as “winning the title from Tony Zale (1947) and never lost it since“. However, Graziano lost the title in June 10, 1948 suggesting that the set was developed before this fight. It is also interesting to note that there is some discrepancy between official fight records and Kiddy’s records and it is unclear if they included newspapers decision as a source for their records.
Freddie Mills is described as “due to meet Gus Lesnevich in July.. for a return contest”, which they did and Mills won the light heavyweight title. This implies the cards were completed before July of 1948. However, Sammy Sullivan “paid his first visit to Glasgow in May at the Paisley Ice Rink.” Sullivan only fought once at Paisley on May 26, 1948. Therefore the cards were likely produced some time between June and July 1948.
Sugar Ray Robinson’s true rookie
What all this means is that A & J Donaldson boxers set 250 – 299 almost certainly predates both the Topps, Kiddy’s, Cummings, and Leaf sets. Therefore, the set is important as it contains many of the true rookie cards of some of boxing’s key fighters including Rocky Graziano, Jake La Motta, Joe Walcott, Willie Pep, Tony Zale and of course, the great Sugar Ray Robinson.
However, all of the cards examined, other than the Cummings, were released in 1948 so depending on your definition, could be considered the rookie card.
Comparison of Population Reports
The Sugar Ray Robinson cards from the Donaldson set also appears to be much scarcer than that both the the Leaf set of which there 332 graded on PSA and 142 on SGC as well as the Cummings set of which there 126 graded on PSA and 13 on SGC. In contrast, PSA has only 12 of the Donaldson Robinson card graded and SGC has 3 for a total of 15 graded copies between the two companies. However, it must be acknowledged that these numbers might also reflect that collectors, who thought the cards were issued in 1953, would be less likely to send their cards into be graded. That said, I still think its fair to say that the Donaldson Robinson card is much rarer than either the Leaf or the Cummings. The Topps Magic Photo cards are also considerably rarer and likely harder to find in high grade due to the issued developing the picture. There are 49 graded copies including variants on the PSA registry. They Kiddy’s has 33 graded copies on PSA including variants; however, this card is also very difficult to find in good condition with 27 of those copies grading a 1 with 5 being the highest grade. The Donaldson Sport Favourites cards are also generally hard to find in high quality and the top grade that can be found for the entire set is a 6 on both PSA and SGC. Compare that with the Cummings set where we see well over 1500 copies that have graded 8 or higher at PSA alone.
Some collectors may still choose the 1948 Leaf as the rookie as it is a photograph as opposed to caricature, while others will prefer the Donaldson as it is the first time Robinson appears on cardboard as well as its relative scarcity. Both are fantastic cards of one of the greatest to ever put on boxing gloves. As always, collect what you like!
The Cardboard Junkie 