Collecting Milestone: 1938 Konig Fussball Cigarette Cards (Germany)

[weichni]

Hey guys,

as a soccer collector I spend most of the time on here reading your stories, but the "What is your current vintage project"-thread inspired me to share one myself.

I know that the vintage section here is mainly run by baseball collectors, but maybe you can enjoy my project just as much as I enjoy looking at all the great baseball cards (even though I have no clue about baseball).

This post will probably be a bit longer, but believe me, the set is well worth it.

For all of you, who are not much into vintage soccer:

This set was produced in Germany in 1938 and distributed through different cigarette packs, which leads to many different back variations, just like in "the monster", that you have in baseball.

It features a total of 337 cards, which were intended to be glued into the album (see picture below). Actually there are 2 versions of the album, as the inital one did not hold spaces for every single card. So you could customize your album with 1 player of a club and then paste the rest, or doubles into the second album where you could also add extra pages.

Unlike most pre war set, this one not only features players from it's country of production, but all time greats from all around Europe and even South America. Just to name a few: Dixie Dean (Great Britain), Ricardo Zamorra (Spain), Jose Nasazzi (Uruguay), Netherlands, Finnland, Eastern Europe,.. combined with German legends, such as Helmut Schön (member of the German Hall of Fame), Otto Siffling, Fritz Szepan, and many many others.

Both the album and the cards are absolte pieces of art with their gold border and colorful images. I´ll try to show some pictures to catch that. As a German it's also very special to me that they survived WWII and post war Germany.

So enough talking:
Here is my 1938 König Fussball complete set, all cards with clean backs, the album for the set and most key cards graded:
(Next step: Collect all cards with all possible back variations )







Set

IMG_20220415_111817 by S R, auf Flickr



Back Variations (There are even more smaller ones that I could not fit in the picture)

ALL by S R, auf Flickr



Close up

Konig by S R, auf Flickr


Some graded ones


1938_Konig_Fussball_Zamora-Hofmann_Solo_Back__SGC-Grade-3_Auth-3271018_Front by S R, auf Flickr

1938_Konig_Fussball_Fritz_Szepan_Ramona_Back__SGC-Grade-4pt5_Auth-2127422_Front by S R, auf Flickr

1938_Konig_Fussball_Italy_Blank_Back__SGC-Grade-1_Auth-3786852_Front by S R, auf Flickr

1938_Konig_Fussball_CLIFF_BASTIN_Solo_Back__SGC-Grade-6pt5_Auth-7531332_Front by S R, auf Flickr





Thanks for watching

[weichni]

Oh and a little follow up question:

Are there any nice binders that hold cards in toploaders?
(Preferably with some kind of zip to keep dust out)

I would like to store the set (and future back variations) properly.

[nevermore]

First, congratulations on completing the set! I really love the design, the colors matching the uniforms plus the gold foil. So simple, yet effective.

[phillies347]

Very nice collection !! These cards have great eye appeal, I too love that gold foil and colored borders