1935 National Chicle #17 Tom Jones PSA VG-EX 4

1935 National Chicle #17 Tom Jones PSA 4 - A Forgotten Face from Football’s First Cardboard Classic

The beauty of the 1935 National Chicle set lies in the window it provides into professional football before the game became a national obsession. Tom Jones appears on card #17 in the wonderfully illustrated style that gives the issue its unmistakable pre-war character. Produced during an era when football cards were still a novelty, the set has become a landmark in the hobby—the first nationally distributed set dedicated exclusively to professional football players.

Graded PSA VG-EX 4, this example has survived more than 90 years at an appealing level of preservation. National Chicle cards are notoriously challenging, with fragile surfaces, vulnerable corners, centering issues, and colorful printed backgrounds leaving plenty of opportunities for wear. At the VG-EX level, this Jones retains the visual charm that makes the set so distinctive, offering collectors an attractive original from one of football collecting’s foundational releases.

Cards like this reveal what makes building the 1935 National Chicle set such a rewarding pursuit. Beyond its celebrated stars are players whose cardboard appearances preserve names and stories from the NFL’s formative decades—men who played when the professional game looked dramatically different from the spectacle we know today.