The Chick Gandil E90-3 card we have up for bid this week has a lot going for it. First, it’s Chick Gandil and as serious baseball fans know, he was at the heart of the 1919 Black Sox scandal and this is for all intents and purposes, his rookie card. It’s also part of a candy-issued set that’s much rarer than the popular E90-1 set or the Pittsburgh series E90-2. Issued in Chicago and featuring only players from the Cubs and White Sox, the E-90-3 series of 20 cards was likely put out as a promotion by the American Caramel Company either late in the year, after the young Gandil had come up from the minor leagues, or perhaps early in 1911. Gandil is one of nine White Sox players in the set and you can imagine youngsters around Chicago over a century ago chasing these cards down as best they could whenever they had a penny or nickel in their pocket. Gandil had first come to Comiskey Park in 1910 to replace the veteran Jiggs Donahue at first base, but struggled in his first go-round in the big leagues, hitting below .200 in about a half season of work. He was sent down to the minors again but eventually made his way back to the big leagues where he played in Washington before returning to Chicago. The Gandil card is among the toughest to find in the set, although some speculate that it’s difficult to locate simply because they don’t come up on the market very often. His rookie card is a link to baseball history and collectors simply don’t like to give them up. Set collectors certainly aren’t! Picturing Gandil in an ‘action’ pose with his dark uniform on, the card we’re offering is graded SGC 30 and is very attractive for the grade. Considering that within the first three days of the auction, we’d already received 12 bids, we suspect the competition will be pretty fierce. Who knows when we’ll have another?
