PLEASE NOTE: we have expanded the description of this lot to include more detail on the Ruth, particularly regarding its rapidly escalating value in any grade.

The W515 strip card issue is one of the more popular of its kind, featuring 60 brightly-colored drawings of popular players from the day. Presented here is a complete 10-card W515-1 uncut strip that was saved from the scissors by a well-meaning kid 100 years ago. 

This strip includes cards 41-50 in the set, with 4 Hall of Famers: Jim Johnston (Dodgers), Willie Kamm (White Sox), Sam Jones (Yankees), Frank Snyder (Giants), John McGraw (Giants - HOF), Everett Scott (Yankees), Babe Ruth (Yankees - HOF), Urban Shocker (Browns), Grover Alexander (Cubs - HOF), and "Rabbit" Maranville (Pirates - HOF)

The strip as a whole is in Good condition, though each of the four corners is considerably worn with corner clips on three of the four corners. While the outer edges (left edge of Johnston and right edge of Maranville) are both extremely worn, the tops and bottoms of nearly every other card is in very nice shape, with the bottom edge of Kamm's card and the top edge of Alexander's card being the exceptions showing some wear. The Ruth card appears clean, with a very, very faint mark of some kind next to the "K" in "York," perhaps an imperfection in the paper or a very light stray mark, mentioned here for the sake of accuracy. The piece does exhibit some age-related toning at the edges and on the reverse, consistent with cards printed on this type of paper.

Despite its flaws, the colors remain bright. The reverse is clean, as well, making this a wonderfully attractive piece with tremendous eye appeal, tremendously valuable as even POOR condition examples of the hand-cut Ruth have reached well into the $5,000 range. Uncut specimens are considerably more rare, and in this example the Ruth has been very well-protected by the surrounding cards.