1940-1941 “Aeroplanes - Series C” (R112-4)
Leaf Gum Company, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Series Title: “Aeroplanes - Series C”
American Card Catalog No.: R112-4
Manufactured by: Leaf Gum Company, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Packaged With: CARD-O Chewing Gum
Number of Cards: 56 total: 28 Plain Back, 28 Joker Back
Numbering: Unnumbered
Card Dimensions: 2¼ × 3½ inches (PLC Format)
Circa: 1940-1941
Checklist: Download

Overview

According to The Card Collectors Bulletin (issue No. 48, June 1, 1947), the cards of this group were all issued by Leaf Gum. Many, if not all, of the artwork drawings of airplanes and warships in all five sets appeared in Whitman’s patriotic books. The book noted below contains the artwork for all the cards in this set. The Card Collectors Bulletin also reported that on 1 December 1948, the Leaf Gum Company dumped its surplus CARD-O gum cards on the market after the war. A partially-full Leaf display was purchased by a collector and was found to contain airplane cards from Series B, C, D and the unmarked, so-called mixed series of 46. The gum was wrapped in individual sticks and purchasers apparently got a stick and their choice of card for a penny.

Aeroplanes - Series C

Aeroplanes - Series C (CARD-O) contains twenty-eight basic aircraft images. However, there were two varieties of the set issued by the Leaf Gum Company. The first variety, Plain Back, has a simple text description on the reverse side of the card. The second variety, Joker Back contains the word Joker in opposite diagonal corners of the card.

To make things a little more confusing, Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin also issued two series of Zoom Airplane Card Games that are often confused as being of the R112-4 CARD-O variety. The Whitman Airplane Card Games share much of the artwork that is used in the R112-4 series. It should be noted that the Whitman Publishing Company is the original source of the artwork used in the series. Their wartime booklets contain the original artwork used with this series and many others series such as the Tydol series. The card dimensions are 2¼ × 3½ inches with rounded corners. The American Card Catalog reference number for the set is R112-4.

Image-Guide

The R112-4 Image-Guide is presented in two sections: (1) the cards with Plain Backs, and (2) the cards with Joker Backs. Behind each of the following thumbnail images are 600-dpi images of the fronts and backs of each card. All the images have a computer enhanced for presentation purposes.

Plain Backs

Joker Backs

Wrapper and Retail Store Display Box

All we have at this time is the information that we obtained from The Sport Americana® PRICE GUIDE to the Non-Sports Cards 1930-1960, Vol. 2 by Christopher Benjamin. According to Benjamin, CARD-O Chewing Gum stick wrapper purchasers got one stick of gum and their choice of a card for a penny. The Retail Store Display box shown below came with a lift cover. Each box also contained a stand-up insert panel with the same design as the cover lid. We are not sure which of the many CARD-O series (R112-3, R112-4, R112-12, etc.) used the wrapper and the box show below.

Albums versus Original Artwork

To the best of our knowledge, Leaf Gum did not issue any companion albums with this series. However, the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin issued a series of wartime booklets that contained the original artwork used by Leaf Gum for this series. The artwork is spread over at least five of these 3⅝ × 5¾ inch booklets. The artwork was also used in the Tydol UO-1 Aeroplane series, the Spaulding Krullers D87 and DC-6 series, and a similar Cracker Jack series. To date, we know of the following six booklets. There might be more of them out there, but we have not seen them.

Checklist

CARD-O Aeroplanes - Series C (R112-4)
CARD-O Chewing Gum, Leaf Gum Company, United States
Checklist
Plain
Back		Joker
Back		AircraftCountry
Blackburn BothaEngland
Bloch 131 France
Boulton Paul DefiantEngland
Consolidated B-24United States
Consolidated PB2Y2 "Coronado" (sic)United States
Curtiss O-52United States
Curtiss P-40United States
Curtiss XSB2C-1United States
Curtiss-Wright C-55United States
Douglas A20-A (sic)United States
Douglas TBD-1 "Devastator"United States
Grumman F4F-3United States
Grumman SkyrocketUnited States
Lockheed 12-AUnited States
Martin 156-CUnited States
Martin B-26United States
Martin PBM-1 "Mariner"United States
Miles MasterEngland
Muniz M-7Brazil
North American "Apache" United States
North American B-25United States
Republic P-47United States
Ryan PT-21United States
Short-SunderlandEngland
T.B.3Russia
Vought-Sikorsky XF4U-1 "Corsair"United States
Z.K.B. 26Russia
Wrapper and Store Display Box
1-Cent CARD-O Wrapper
1-Cent CARD-O "War Planes of Allied Nations" Retail Store Box
Companion Booklets Containing CARD-O Artwork
"A Guide to American Airplanes," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing, 1940
"Warplanes of All Nations," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing, 1940
"A Guide to Airplanes of the U.S.A.," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing, 1942
"Modern Warplanes of the World," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing, 1942
"Warplanes of the World," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing, 1943
"Airplanes of the U.S.A.," John B. Walker, Whitman Publishing

References

  1. Dahlquist, Richard (RIP): Numerous telephone, email, and snail-mail conversations.
  2. Shupek, John A.: Card images from the Skytamer Archive Digital Image Database
  3. Kramer, Albert B.: Cards scans from the Kramer Collection
  4. Kuchta, Vladisla: 2/19/2010 email, Scan of CARD-O Retail Sore Display Box
  5. Sheppard, Christopher: 8/4/2008 email, Airplanes of the U.S.A. Booklet scan and information
  6. Benjamin, Christopher: The Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards 1930-1960 No. 2, Edgewater Book Company, Cleveland, Ohio, ISBN 0-937424-66-8, 1993, pp. 40-48.




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