Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: These were my great-grandmother's.

We found them in a tote of her dolls.

They are just Walt Disney bubble gum cards.

APPRAISER: Okay, and when did you discover your grandmother's cards?

Last night, we were looking through her totes of dolls, and we found these at the bottom.

APPRAISER: Okay, so you literally discovered these, like, the night before coming...

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: ...to ANTIQUES ROADSHOW?

GUEST: Right before we came.

APPRAISER: Wow, okay, so you are correct.

They are Walt Disney gum trading cards.

But specifically, the series is actually Mickey Mouse.

Now, they were released in 1935.

They were manufactured by Gum Inc., Gum Incorporated, which was one of the biggest manufacturers of non-sport trading cards at the time.

Now, later on, Gum Incorporated ended up being renamed the Bowman Company, which went on to make baseball, football...

I mean, a powerhouse of printing cards.

When it comes to the Mickey Mouse card set, there are 96 cards within the complete set.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: You have 36 cards here today.

Any idea why we have these two cards on the board today?

GUEST: That one looks real bright.

There's two of the number ones, and that one's a much brighter than that one.

They look like they're in good condition.

APPRAISER: Okay, so, great observation.

They are in good condition.

But I'm going to drop a little factoid of knowledge on you.

So when you look at the bottom margin of the cards...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...you're going to see how this one says "This picture answers question on other side."

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Whereas that card over there says, "Here's the answer to question on card no.

2."

So that's because of the 96 cards released in this set, the first 24 had two printing variations.

The first printing variation, which is the rarer of the two, is this example right here.

So out of the first 24 cards, you always want to find a card with that slogan.

Now, you did say condition.

In the grand scheme of card condition, these are very, very poor, like, in bad shape.

But if you were a paper trading card from 1935, you'd be in wicked bad shape, too.

GUEST: (laughing) APPRAISER: Now, we don't have a complete set.

You have some duplicates of cards that you have here today.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Conservatively, at auction, we would say the group would be worth about $2,000 to $3,000.

GUEST: (laughing): Oh, wow!

That was not expected!

APPRAISER: Awesome!

Yes!

That's crazy.

GUEST: I wouldn't have ex... That's astonishing.

APPRAISER: She left you a nice little present in a box of dolls.

GUEST: Thank you!