These cards are very rare. They appear to be point of purchase distributed cards from Goudey, issued circa 1930, making them one of the first if not the first Goudey cards. I acquired some because I liked them; they remind me of the Exhibit cards that I love to collect. They are postcard sized and blank backed. Images in the set appear to be drawn from 1928-1929 films plus several of Tom Mix's earlier films. The American Card Catalog designation for the issue is E282.
Given the size of the cards and the normal configuration of the type of printing presses used to make cards in the era, other collectors and I had long assumed that a set count would be 32 cards. In 2011 I was finally able to identify 32 different cards, which I believe is a complete set. The known checklist:
“The Phantom Flier” (2) “Rough Riding Romance” Tom Mix and Jack Dempsey “The Two Black Crows” (4) “Welcome Danger” (2) “The Glorious Trail” “Cheyenne” “From Headquarters” (2) “Just Tony” (2) “No Defense” “Softboiled” “The Upland Rider” “The Clean Up Man” “The Glorious Trail” (2) “The Wagon Show” “The Canyon of Adventure” (3) “Stairs of Sand” (3) “The Deadwood Coach” “The Lone Star Ranger” Untitled
Date(s): June 25, 2005. Album by Adam Warshaw. 1 - 24 of 25 Total. 413 Visits.
1 Just Tony: This 1922 Tom Mix vehicle "stars" Tony the horse, Tom Mix's trick riding horse. Here Mix (with the white ten-gallon hat) is shown with two other actors.
2 [Untitled]: This one I am just about certain depicts Tom Mix and his horse Tony from the film "Just Tony".
3 Cheyenne: The trick riding son of a gun shown here is Ken Maynard from the 1929 oater "Cheyenne".
4 From Headquarters:
5 No Defense
6 Rough Riding Romance
7 Soft Boiled: a 1923 oater starring Tom Mix, shown here on the left. The woman in the picture is Billie Dove. I think the man is Joseph Girard.
8 Stairs of Sand
9 Stairs of Sand
10 Stairs of Sand
11 Canyon of Adventure
12 The Clean Up Man: 1928's epic oater starred Ted Wells, shown here in portrait.
13 The Deadwood Coach. Tom Mix and Doris May from 1924. Looks to me like the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley formed the backdrop for this dramatic shot.
14 The Deadwood Coach: Tom Mix on the right; can't determine who the hombre on the left is...yet
15 The Phantom Flyer
16 The Two Black Crows: Well, it was a different era; we've certainly evolved as a society.
17 The Wagon Show
18 The Wagon Show
19 Welcome Danger: Harold Lloyd was one of the great silent comedians. I have seen three of the different cards from Welcome Danger in this series.
20 Welcome Danger: The woman with Lloyd is Barbara Kent. Note the Asians in the background. Charles Middleton, famous to serial fans everywhere as Ming The Merciless in the old Flash Gordon 1930s epics, played the pan-Asian heavy in this one, The Dragon.
21
22 This badly miscut card shows that one Welcome Danger card was right on top of another.
23 Jack Dempsey and Tom Mix: Here is the Jack Dempsey card. Depicted on the left is Tom Mix. Mix and Dempsey often sparred in the early 1920s. Haven't been able to pin down the fellow in the middle yet. The original photo was almost certainly taken at the same place as the image of Tom Mix and Newsboy Brown that was used to create a very rare Exhibit card. Since Mix is in the same place with different fighters I would assume that it is either a studio facility or a Mix facility.
