Update to N269 Lorillard's dating etc.
 

Clearing through all my old notes and organizing them raises a lot of things I'd found years ago and forgotten about. I want to note that this set can be positively dated to 1888, with some conclusive limiters on both ends.

PSA, SGC, and the Jones and Warshaw books all date the set to 1887. Forbes doesn't comment on the date, I don't think I've seen an authority give any date besides 1887. The long-lasting myth of 1887 is impossible because 3 of the cards mention events and their dates that occurred in January or March of 1888, and 2 more cards mention mid December of 1887 events. It is impossible for a card to be designed, printed and issued before the outcome of an event it gives happened. I have no idea where this fiction originated but it has stuck around. Q2 of 1888 is the earliest possible date, but this doesn't mean it was actually produced shortly after the back descriptions end, that's the only the earliest possible time.

What is 'new' is that I found in my records court documents and city directories that tell us Ballin & Liebler, the lithographer for the set that appears directly on 1 of the 2 types of the cards was put out of business formally at the very beginning of 1889. By the March 1889 Trow Directory they were formally dissolved, and by December of 1888 Ballin appears to have been effectively dead, the company's remains tied up in court over non-issuance of stock. Nathan Ballin died around the same time, leaving his partner. The cards could not possibly have been produced before Q2 of 1888 and the lithographer who made them was gone by early 1889, so seems this one can be dated pretty closely.

There were between 2-4 major printings of the cards, depending on ones stance on the 'green' tints (I don't think my eyes quite align with authorities here either), with 1-2 clearly marked as Ballin & Liebler products. It is possible that the cards lacking the copyright are an early 1889 product, done by a different firm. However, considering the other major and material changes to them and the fairly short time frames of set-subject releases typical of the period, I suspect this is not the case and the reason for the difference in types.