On the Set
Produced by the San Francisco-based Collins-McCarthy Candy Company, the 1917 E135 issue remains one of the most important and visually distinctive baseball card sets of the 1910s. Nearly two decades before the official National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, Collins-McCarthy attempted to create its own cardboard “Hall of Fame,” with each reverse stating that the card was one of 200 pictures comprising “Baseball’s Hall of Fame.”
The set is especially important historically because it represents one of the final major baseball card issues produced before the long hobby gap that followed World War I and preceded the caramel-card boom of the early 1920s. The same photographic design was also used for related regional issues including Boston Store, Weil Baking, and Standard Biscuit cards, linking these sets together as one of the hobby’s most important prewar families of candy and bakery cards.
Collins-McCarthy was already well known through its famous Zee Nut Pacific Coast League cards, but the E135 issue offered West Coast collectors rare images of major league stars who almost never appeared in California during the Deadball Era — more than forty years before Major League Baseball expanded westward.
On the Player
Clarence “Tillie” Walker was one of the better American League outfielders of the late Deadball Era and early live-ball period. Contemporary newspaper coverage from 1916 and 1917 described Walker as Tris Speaker’s capable successor in Boston and praised him as a “great asset” to the Red Sox. Walker later developed into one of the league’s more dangerous power hitters, leading the American League in home runs during 1918 and finishing second in 1922 with 37 home runs — ahead of Babe Ruth’s 35 that same season.
Population data underscores the scarcity of this specific Hall-of-Fame-back variation. PSA and SGC combined have encapsulated only eight total examples of the Clarence Walker card with the Collins-McCarthy advertising reverse. Only two examples have graded higher than this SGC 3 specimen, both receiving SGC 4 grades.
An exceptionally scarce and historically important prewar regional candy issue featuring one of the overlooked stars of the Deadball and early live-ball transition era.
This SGC 3 example presents attractively overall with strong eye appeal, clean contrast, and solid registration to the photographic image. Technical flaws include modest corner wear, light surface handling, and scattered chipping to the original photo gloss consistent with many surviving E135 cards printed on fragile thin stock over a century ago. The reverse remains clean and legible with the desirable Collins-McCarthy ‘Baseball’s Hall of Fame’ advertising back fully visible.
Please review front and back images carefully to evaluate condition for yourself, as the card shown is the exact example you will receive.
Card will be carefully packaged and shipped securely with tracking. We take great care in protecting vintage cards during shipment to help ensure safe arrival.
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