Distinctive Insignia Collector Card Album "Insignias Of The United States Army"

[vette59]

I picked up an old album titled "Insignias Of The United States Army". It contains fifty three, 5.25" x 3.5" cards depicting the distinctive insignia of various infantry, artillery, coast artillery, cavalry, engineer, aviation and quartermaster units. The cards are printed on thin cardboard and are printed in color using what looks like a gold leaf ink. The cards have a brief history of the unit on the reverse side and are noted as being printed by the A - N Comic Card Company and by the Army - Navy Card Company, San Francisco, CA. 

 

The album measures 17.75" x 12" and contains 45 pages. It is labeled "Insignias Of The United States Army, Compiled and Edited by Lt. John J. Sacks, Inf-Res, Published by Army - Navy Card Company, San Francisco, Calif. The cards and pages look almost brand new and there are no signs that the cards were ever removed.

 

The cards all look to be from regular army units and seem to be from the early to mid 1930's. 

 

Has anyone ever seen the album or the cards before? I would like to know if there were more cards that were printed and what is the origin of the album. I have attached some photos of the album and cards below. 

 

Thanks in advance for any help.  

[KurtA]

I’ve never seen it.  It’s a really nice vintage publication. 

[patches]

Very niffty, love the concise unit histories on the back of them.

 

Question.

 

The unit histories go no further then the 30s?

[vette59]

I removed three more of the cards and histories only go as far as the 1930's. I think it is safe to say that the album and cards were produced sometime in the 1930's. 

 

If you have any thoughts on the album, please let me know.

[KurtA]

I see the cards are numbered on the reverse.  So, each card is part of a set - similar to what you would have for baseball cards.  Being they are in an album, good chance you have the complete set (hopefully no one card has a number higher than 53). No  doubt this was a very limited production set (I have never seen them), but unfortunately, there probably isn't sufficient collector demand to support the value corresponding to their rarity.   Non-military collectors wouldn't care about them too much  (they want the other more mainstream cards of the era) and military collectors  view them as something quite interesting, but probably wouldn't pay too much of a premium for them (they want the actual insignia).

But, all that aside, they are really nice.   The obverse printing is really high quality.

[vette59]

Thanks for the input. I agree that it is a niche item and probably wouldn't bring a premium except to maybe an advanced D.I. collector. 

 

I did find one guy on the Forum that bought a single card from the set on Ebay. I asked how much he paid for it, but haven't heard back from him. My guess is that a single card might be worth $10-$15, but I wouldn't want to break up the set.