1933 Chain Stitched Numbers?!?

I got an interesting email from Jeff Scott of birdbats.com, he pointed me to two old uniforms that were up for auction. See images below.

These jerseys are in excellent condition. Click to zoom! The embroidery work is excellent, and the thread colors are incredibly well preserved. These are awesome samples from the Gas House Gang Era.

The auction site dates one of the jerseys as 1933-1934, and the other 1933-1935. Jerseys are very seldom displayed with the back showing, but because these are up for auction, we get to look at the number on back. And we’re lucky they photographed the back, because the numbers are chain stitch embroidered! 

Jeff then asked, “The Cardinals museum has the ’31 WS Syl Johnson jersey that was numbered and used in ’32 — it has felt numbers. They also have a couple ’34 jerseys with felt numbers. The museum’s curator says the team doesn’t own any jerseys with chain-stitched numbers… Do you think it’s possible the numbers in 1933 were chain stitched?”

So I looked in my collection of photos and found no images of backs of jerseys. But the Cardinals do have a couple jerseys in their collection from 1933 specifically, a Rogers Hornsby and a Jimmie Wilson. So, we have asked the Cardinals Museum curator to see if we can get some quick snapshots of the backs of those jerseys, and we’ll make an update post when those come in.