1952 Royal Desserts

The 1952 Royal Desserts Stars of Basketball set contains​ 8 cards ​that are hand-cut from the backs of​ packages​ of Royal Puddings, Royal Tapioca Puddings, Royal Gelatin Desserts and Royal Custard Flavor Dessert Mix.  ​T​he cards are numbered from 1 to 8, measure roughly 2 5/8" by 3 1/4" and have blank backs. The card​'s fronts have a stripe at the top and are divided into halves. The left half has a light-blue tinted head shot of the player and a facsimile autograph, while the right half has ​a bio. The blue tinted picture contains a facsimile autograph of the player. You could ​o​btain an 8-page “Plastic Album”​ by sending in 15¢ plus 3 Royal Dessert package fronts.​ The set is classified in the American Card Catalog by Burdick as F219-2.

​Per PSA, these cards came in two versions​ -- black and red lettering with a black and white image​ and blue and red lettering with a blue tinted image. Cards with blue lettering is much rarer than the black. PSA also writes that "[p]rimary indications are that the blue tint version was exclusively on the custard flavor dessert mix, while the more common version of these cards was found on everything else." Royal Desserts cards were also produced for baseball, hockey, movie stars, ​Howdy Doody, Alice in Wonderland, and Stars of the Sky (airplanes)​.  

These Basketball cards are super rare to find as shown by PSA low pop counts. As of 1/1/25, there are only a total of 45 graded by SGC and 35 graded by PSA. Further, SGC 6 and PSA 6 are the highest grades attained (most have much lower grades). These cards suffer from poor edge trimming due to being cut ​from a box – is a ​c​hallenging task!