Produced by Felix Mendelsohn and featuring back advertising from a number of different businesses, the M101-4 and M101-5 cards of 1916 continue to experience explosive growth in popularity as collectors discover the photographic cards of the late 1910s and 1920s. Though we call these cards Sporting News, aside from being advertised there, the publication has little to do with the blank-backed cards, which were prepared in advance of the 1916 season and were sold for $1, with framed uncut sheets available for $2.50.
This example, featuring the immensely popular athlete Jim Thorpe, is one of the issue's key cards and one that does not make itself available very often, in any of the different back varieties with which it was produced. Nicknamed the "World's Greatest Athlete," Thorpe won gold medals in the 1912 Olympics and played baseball, football and basketball professionally. He played parts of six seasons with the Giants, Reds and Braves, but his greatest baseball achievement was an anecdotal one: in a semipro game on the Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas border, Thorpe hit three home runs into three different states!
As a football player, Thorpe played 52 professional games, passing for four touchdowns and running for six more. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 1963. The Associated Press named Thorpe the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th Century. His American heritage, coupled with his athletic dominance, make him one of the most popular and widely-collected of all sports figures.
A beautifully sharp and well-centered NM-MT 8 card, the card is one of just two examples to reach this plateau, with a sole PSA 8.5 above it. No SGC-graded example has eclipsed it, with the highest grade on their population reports being a single example graded NM 7. In fact, of the various back varieties of this pose graded by PSA, none have graded as high, making this the second-highest graded example of any Mendelsohn-produced card of Jim Thorpe. This wonderful rarity is sharp and clean, with light, even toning and strong centering for the issue. The corners are sharp, with very faint touches slightly impacting the technical grade.
Jim Thorpe remains one of the most important and widely-collected of all athletes, his popularity cutting across multiple sports. One of the highest-grade examples of any Jim Thorpe card ever issued, and certainly one of the most significant, with just one example graded a half-point higher. One of the most significant cards we have ever offered.