1939 Play Ball Mel Ott #51

Mel Ott spent his entire playing career with the New York Giants, from 1926 to 1947, hit 511 home runs and became the first National League player to reach 500. He managed the Giants from 1942 to 1948, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1951 and died in 1958, aged 49. His 1939 Play Ball card, #51, is one of the Hall of Famer cards in a set that PSA says “ushered in a new era of baseball cards.”

The 1939 Play Ball set

Play Ball was produced by Gum, Incorporated. The 1939 set has 161 cards numbered 1 to 162 — #126 was never issued. At 2-1/2" by 3-1/8", PSA notes, the cards were larger than nearly any tobacco card of the early twentieth century. Fronts carry black-and-white player photos with no name; the backs have a biography and the card number. According to Pre-War Cards, the backs promise a series of 250 players, although the set stopped at 162, and the issue marked what was then promoted as baseball's 100th anniversary.

The set's headline cards are #26 Joe DiMaggio and #92 Ted Williams — Williams' only 1939 card and his rookie card. Ott sits in the low-number range, which matters for two variations that apply only there:

• Sample backs. Cards #1–115 can be found with a red overprint on the back reading “FREE Sample Card” and advertising Play Ball America bubble gum at one cent. PSA says how these samples were distributed is unknown; Pre-War Cards notes they were printed in smaller quantities.
• Name lettering. Cards #2–115 exist with the player's name printed in all capitals or in mixed case. PSA calls all-capitals examples close to a rarity; Pre-War Cards reports little price difference.

The high numbers, #116–162, are scarcer and carry a premium, so #51 is not one of the scarce cards in the set — its value rests on Ott himself and on grade.

PSA population snapshot

There are no PSA 10s. Six PSA 9s is a small number in absolute terms, but it is a modest-value card, so — as PSA's own commentary on population figures warns — part of that scarcity reflects how rarely low-value prewar cards are submitted.

Public sales at the top

High-grade Play Ball cards also turn up in group lots. Lelands sold a five-card lot of PSA 8 Hall of Famers from the 1939 set — #7 Doerr, #50 Gehringer, #51 Ott, #94 Manush and #112 Waner — for $1,084.65, pitched at collectors upgrading a high-end set. The old lot address that now leads to this page named a PSA 9 Ott — the highest grade PSA has assigned to this card.