Thrift Store Find - The Babe Ruth Collection

 Making the rounds at thrift stores yields a gem every now and then. Though I'm not sure I'd call this a gem, but it is a nice looking set of the history of one of the greatest ball players to live.  The Babe Ruth Collection was published in 1992 by something called Megacards.  I don't know the history of this company and I'm not sure I care to track it down.  What I do know is they made a complete 165 card set of Babe Ruth!

The black border beauties consist of black and white photos of the life and times of the Bambino.  You may have seen many of these photos before, as they have been published in various books and periodicals throughout the years. Unfortunately the cards are fairly easy to damage and the border makes chipping show up like a star in the night sky.

Hey I have this one!  I liked this photo of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth so much that many years ago I ordered an 8x10 off a Wheaties cereal box. It's sitting happily in one of my 8x10 photo binders.

For you Dodger fans, the set even has cards showing The Babe coaching a crosstown rival. Babe Ruth apparently also squeezed in a few holes of golf too.

The card backs are packed full of information, tidbits, stats and facts.  This is really an encyclopedia of  Babe Ruth's career and history.  You could sit and read these for hours.

This set is broken into a series of subsets, with each subset exploring specific era's of his career and life.  The cartoon by Rube Goldberg is very cool, as is him playing Santa.

For fans of landscaped shots, there are plenty in this set. The first card is taken from the "Called Shot" subset.  The last card explains how the Babe had a penchant for  getting suspended.

One of the landscaped shots include Babe Ruth towering over some Japanese players (kids?). I wonder if he had any idea that war would break out a few years later. 

Speaking of Japan....

This binder also included a 1993 Superare Babe Ruth in Japan reprint set.  Bonus!  I had never seen this before at any card show or store.  Kind of a neat little reprint set of some of the rarest Ruth cards.  

The backs of this reprint set are clearly marked as such, so at least Superare did something right, unlike whoever the Japanese artist was of card #1.  Really not a flattering look for the Babe. Does anyone read Japanese?  I can only imagine the back of card #1 reads as "buy more cards".  

For a nice tidy sum of about 10 bucks, I was able to take home not only 2 sets dedicated to Babe Ruth, but a comprehensive guide to his career and life.  I'll take this gem of a deal anytime, and plan to keep a spot in the collection for these sets.