E97 C.A. Briggs Dating
 

Out of curiosity, the E97 CA Briggs set is generally listed as a 1909 or a 1909-10 issue. But given the fact that the Cy Young/Irv Young card has a Boston National variation, shouldn't it really be 1909-11? Cy didn't go to Boston until August of the 1911 season.

Irv did actually play on the Boston National League team as well but that was in 1908. Plus, considering the picture is the same on both cards and given that it has Cleveland and Boston variations, it would seem to be referring to Cy's stint in Boston and not Irv's.

I've looked all over but don't seem to find this argument being made, though I find it hard to believe it hasn't been before.

Although not completely responsive to your question, the following discussion is interesting and may shed light(note the remarks on Denny Sullivan):
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?p=1440608

It seems the E97 B&W cards that some consider proofs would have predated the color version, and that these have a couple of players captioned with 1908 teams, including Young. The Young B&W card depicts him with Boston N.L., where Irv played in 1908. Although the caption on the B&W says Cy, remember that Irv was sometimes called Young Cy or variations thereof. My guess is when the cards were first colorized, they originally carried over this team designation, even though the issuer intended the real Cy Young to be in the set and therefore checklisted him with Cleveland. Seeing that the front and back team designations did not match, they corrected the error and had another printing that used the same erroneous depiction but which changed the caption to Cleveland. The same appears to have happened with the cards of Simon Nichols, and Sullivan was intended to be Billy but instead showed Denny. That's one theory anyway.

https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?s...oduct.chain%5D
So you can look at the card as Cy Young with an erroneous front, or as Irv Young with an erroneous back. :)

Thanks, Todd - that's an interesting thought. I was aware of all of that but did not consider that the set could have been printed with 1908 captions. Will have to do more digging and see where other players were in 1908 but that theory seems plausible.

E97 Black and White aren't proofs. That is a myth that has been perpetuated forever. Todd (hey Todd) gave some good info above.
Nice Irv in a 40 holder. It got sold with my collection but I remember buying it from Terry K senior, at a National approximately 17-18 yrs ago. He had this and a McGinnity for 1k each. I took Irv thinking at the time it was Cy. That was quite a few years back....

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Yeah, that part I did know. Some of the black and white cards have the later variations like the Nicholls Philadelphia, which would indicate it was printed later. Likely a different set entirely.

E97 Timeline
 

Having spent a good deal of time with this set, I've enjoyed reading this discussion as well as the longer thread referenced above. I would suggest the following timeline for the issue, and would be very interested to hear comments or alternatives:

1. Briggs decided to put together a set in early 1909 - perhaps as early as January. They put together the Black & White series as we know it today with 30 cards.

2. Being a Boston-centric company, Briggs printed cards of local players Joe Kelly, Irv Young, and Denny Sullivan. The Black & White cards have no team variations, each is shown with the team they played for in 1908. They also include misspellings of "Dolan" and "Steinfeld" which would be corrected only on the later color versions.

3. These Black & White cards were issued in early 1909. How and for how long, who knows? Assuming they were printed and issued together, the key card in this sequencing is Admiral Schlei (who was not signed by New York until December 1908). Thus, the Black & White cards were printed AFTER December 1908.

4. In the Summer or Fall of 1909, Briggs decides to do a full color version of these cards. They began printing the fronts with the exact same images and team labeling as the Black & White versions, perhaps preparing for an early 1910 release.

5. In early 1910, they realize they have a few problems. Sullivan and Young are no longer with Boston. Nichols was traded in December of 1909. There are also the misspellings noted above. They stop printing the fronts, and lay out the checklist for the back with the necessary fixes.

6. In composing the checklist, they correctly noted the new team for Nicholls, and decided to "label" (or pass off) Irv Young as being his brother who plays for Cleveland, and Sullivan as Billy who still played for Chicago. The checklist also has the correct spelling for Doolan and Steinfeldt. I think the Nicholls trade is definitive here, because there can be no confusion about names (Sullivan/Young) or teams (American vs. National League). Importantly, ALL E97 backs show this same checklist - and it MUST have been created AFTER December 1909 (Nicholls trade date).

7. Thus, ALL of the colored cards MUST have been issued AFTER December 1909.

8. In short, I think everything about the original issue/printing - aside from some spelling typos (Steinfeldt, Doolan) - was as intended. When they went to issue the color version in early 1910, they fixed as many issues as they could as noted on the Checklist; used up their initial run of colored fronts; then reworked the front plates for Doolan, Nicholls, Steinfeldt, Sullivan, and Young and continued distributing.

9. I think the colored run was issued/distributed throughout most of the 1910 season, but NOT re-issued in 1911. By then, there were just too many players who were no longer in the big leagues, including (I think): Austin, Durham, Dygert, Hinchman, Keeler, Kelly, Kroh, Nicholls, and Rossman.

10. Lastly, I do believe there was one, uncorrected, team error in the original issue: Keeler is shown with New York of the National League. From what I can tell, Keeler did not join the Giants until May of 1910. Given the team changes and timing noted above, I simply cannot believe that ALL of the cards (B & W and color) were created in Late 1910. I believe Keeler's card should have read NY American from the start.

It's just a theory.
Thoughts?

You make some interesting points - great stuff. Two questions on my end:

1. If the Cy Young card was really intended to be Irv all along and the black and white set was printed first, why were none of the cards printed with Irv's name?

2. Are we positive that no black and white corrected cards/variations exist? I haven't seen them but PSA, for example, says they have graded a corrected Steinfeldt black and white card in their pop report. They also say they graded a Sullivan black and white card with the Chicago caption. I'm not sure if those are errors on their part or not.

E97 Timeline
 

No question, the existence of those variations in Black & White would blow-up the hypothesis. I have never seen them, and could not locate via auction searches.

With regard to Irv, as was mentioned on a previous thread: It is his picture, his team, and he went by the nickname Cy. Pretty reasonable to assume they intended it to represent him in the initial (Black & White) issue dating from early 1909.

Also worth noting is the sale of a complete, "uncut" sheet of 30 colored cards, all reflection the corrections discussed.

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/...-uncut-panels/

I've heard the nickname argument before but never personally bought into it. The reason is because you don't see that on his other cards. He's almost always referred to as Irv/Irving or simply Young. I don't know that he has a single other card where he's called Cy.

I've scoured through old newspapers for this, too. You sometimes saw a reference to the nickname but usually in conjunction with his real name to avoid confusion (i.e. Irving Cy Young or Young Cy Young). I don't know that he was blatantly called Cy Young much (if at all). My general belief is that it was simply an error. They either used the wrong picture or had the wrong name. I've always had a problem with believing that the card was simply listing his nickname because you don't see that on his other issues (i.e. T206, Fan Craze, E98, etc. His E98 card, curiously, has quotation marks around the 'Cy', kind of treating it like a nickname. But I think that was probably done because the pictures used the same ones as E97 and it was a way to recognize that it wasn't THE Cy Young.

One issue with the dating theory that actually ties into this is that, if the cards were printed after December 1908 and intended to feature Irv, he had long since left Boston since he went to Pittsburgh in the middle of that season. Cy Young, meanwhile, pitched with Boston for all of 1908. If your dating theory is correct, I have an even stronger belief that the card was supposed to feature Cy since Irv had left Boston midway through the season.

In short, I think we have a long way to go to solving this, haha!

E97 Timeline
 

The use of "Cy" may well have been the wrong name, but I do believe they intended to represent Irv. Note the team, as well, is Boston National League.

The situation is similar for Joe Kelley, the only other Boston Nat'l player depicted in the series. He was released in December of 1908. Given that Schlei was depicted with New York, it is most likely that the cards were prepared AFTER both Kelley and Young departed from the Doves.

I would also note that there at least two players depicted from each of the 9 teams represented in the series, further suggesting that the inclusion of Irv was the intention (otherwise Kelley would be the only Boston Nat'l leaguer).

Yeah, it definitely could be. I don't know that we'll ever fully know. I just wonder why they wouldn't have gotten the team name correct if it happened well in advance of the printing (assuming the late 1908 or early 1909 print date). Here's what we know, assuming that print timeline.

Another thing confusing to me is why they didn't get it right on Irv if they made a correction in 1910? Irv spent the entire 1909 season in Minneapolis. Still, he was acquired by the White Sox in August, 1909. By 1910 he could have been corrected to show him with the White Sox just as easily as having "Cy" with Cleveland. Also, if the idea was to have two players for each of the teams represented, adding Irv as a Chicago southsider would have meshed nicely with the now "Billy" Sullivan who is checklisted as the only White Sox player.

I think by then it was clearly supposed to be Cy. That's evidenced by the fact that the team was changed to Cleveland as Irv never played there. There's no doubt to me that, if nothing else, the card was changed to be a Cy Young card after that change was made.

I think the artwork remaining the same after the team change to Cleveland (and in the case of Sullivan) was merely a case of not wanting to create an entirely new picture. They just passed it off as Irv. Easy to change print/type - not as easy to find a new artist, get a new rendering, etc.

I do not collect this set, but it is nice to see a possible scenario connecting all the dots. I would think this would make the 1910 issue date for the colored set very likely, and being less commonly found than cards from other caramel sets of the era, also likely that it was only distributed for a relatively short time during 1910. Thanks for sharing your ideas on it.

Brian