Mendelsohn and the E135 cards

[nolemmings]

For the past few years I have dabbled in research as to who created the E135 set, a topic I had not seen discussed much. I am now confident in stating that it was our old friend Felix Mendelsohn, who followed his m101 offerings in 1916 with the cards depicted on Collins-McCarthy, Boston Store and other advertising backs the following year. While there are other indicators that pointed to Mendelsohn, the most important came to me yesterday from an ebay seller who was kind enough to provide a picture I had been seeking for a long time and once asked about in this forum.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=246343&highlight=origins

Here is the March 15, 1917 ad that Mendelsohn placed in The Sporting News, alongside an enlargement of the player depicted.
https://photos.imageevent.com/imoverhere/miscellaneous/websize/19170315adclear.jpg https://photos.imageevent.com/imoverhere/miscellaneous/websize/Baumann.jpg
This no doubt shows that Mendelsohn’s proposed cards were designed the same as e135s. The fake horizon and washed out background elements were of course used in many 1920-1922 sets, but basically would have been new back in 1917.

Mendelsohn followed the March 15 TSN ad with another two months later on May 24, 1917. The only copy I have seen of that ad appears to show the same player photo, although it is smaller and the quality is horrible. It offers youngsters a baseball glove if they buy a set and sell four others, so it appears the cards were not a prototype (as I once thought). Instead, these were blank-backed cards of what we commonly call e135. They perhaps should more properly be called true m101-6s, and an argument can be made that they are instead the “real” m101-5s, since the prior year’s set now known by that name was never offered in the Sporting News. I will have more to post about these cards later, but wanted to get this out now.
[credit to ebay seller bensbigdad6tos for the photo assist]

[Baseball Rarities]

As usual, great research. Makes total sense. Thanks for posting that.

[Leon]

Great research. Thanks Todd.

[oldjudge]

Great job Todd. This work should launch you into a flat footed tie with Ted as the front runners for the O’Doul award.

[nolemmings]

Thanks guys. The head scratcher for me these past few years was the use of the “Pete Baumann” picture. I figured Mendelsohn meant Paddy Baumann, as Baseball reference shows no Pete or Peter Baumann ever playing big (or minor) league ball. Paddy is not in the E135 set, or the connection would have been easier. And it seems odd Mendelsohn would choose this 31 year-old utility player to showcase his “Hall of Fame” set, other than perhaps to offer him as one of “All the New Stars” not present in the previous year’s effort. Still, Mendelsohn’s ads for m101-4 featured a good but not great Del Pratt for the sole picture, used a photo different from that actually shown on the card, and carried a caption different from what ultimately was employed in production. Moreover, some of the store ads for m101 claimed Matty was in the set when in fact he was not. Thus, I decided mistakes or changes could have been made, and not to get too hung up on the player selection but instead focus on the card design. FWIW, here is the LOC photo of Baumann that Mendelsohn used, next to the awful digitalized photo copy I had to use before yesterday.
https://photos.imageevent.com/imoverhere/miscellaneous/websize/Baumann_loc.jpg

The identical design is the icing on the cake, but like I mentioned, there were other general indicators as well.

1. The E135 sets were also comprised of 200 cards, like Mendelsohn’s M101s the preceding year. Although a nice round number, this is not a common total for pre-war card sets; in fact, except for T207, it seems only the card sets from 1916 and 1917 claim this exact number of subjects. We know the m101s were printed on one sheet. Sheet or at least row configuration may have been the same for both sets. Such configuration might have been readily copied by another printer without much difficulty, but was certainly already known to Mendelsohn, and likely easily adaptable for the larger cards of 1917.

2. The card set layouts are similar. Both are numbered and are roughly in alphabetical order, again different from sets that preceded them as well as most of those following for the next ten or more years. In addition, the Collins-McCarthy set makes reference to “Baseball’s Hall of Fame” on the back, a selling point in Mendelsohn’s flyer for m101s the previous year and also found on the ad backs for the Holmes to Homes and Weil Baking cards he printed. Although Mendelsohn didn’t coin the phrase and it could have been common parlance, it is a point of similarity nonetheless.

3. Two of the five known advertisers for E135-style cards were with Mendelsohn just the year prior. Weil Baking and Standard Biscuit both used his services in obtaining the m101-like cards they distributed in 1916, and their 1917 versions used identical backs. If Mendelsohn maintained the back designs, it would be easy to use these again. Even if these businesses owned the rights to them and could look elsewhere for production, one wonders why they would. Assuming the promotions were a success in 1916, why change publishers? Unless pricing was an issue, Mendelsohn was still in the business. If the promotion had not been successful in 1916, then why repeat it at all, much less with a very similar design and photography, with the identical subject number and back advertisement? The decision of these two advertisers to repeat their baseball card advertising under these very similar circumstances suggests they were still using Mendelsohn.

[ValKehl]

Great stuff, Todd! The black & white, real-photo cards are my favorites, especially the M101, E135 and E121/W575-1 cards and all of their related issues with the different advertising backs. I truly enjoy reading and trying to absorb all of the info about them that you and others, such as Rhett Y., have provided to the rest of us collectors.

[paul]

Can I please have a complete set for a dollar, Mr. Mendelsohn?