Versatile fielder Marcelino Guerra played professionally in Cuba as early as 1909, laboring for what served as his four-team league's doormat in that era. Relatively little detail exists for his life off the baseball diamond, which adds poignancy to striking portraits like this horizontal Nacionales cigars card. Love of the Game is proud to offer many of these hard-to-find Caribbean sets and players in this auction.

The SGC VG 3 grade reflects what appears to be residue from an album mount on the reverse and angled bottom edge. Its strong central portrait exceeds the quality seen on newspapers of its era and resembles higher technical scores. Nacionales brand cigars produced a massive, 1000-card set across many subjects of that era and their baseball series (C21-C60) includes just 40 in all. So few from this set survive that every one's a treasure, especially in mid-to-high grade. The SGC population report shows seven total for this number and just one higher!