Have these Jim Thorpe postcards been reprinted?
 

One of the white whales on my want list is a 1912 Olympic Heroes postcard of Jim Thorpe putting the shot. The ones that have come up for auction in recent years have either been out of my price range or I noticed them after the auction was over.

There was an auction on eBay that ended last night for four Thorpe/Tewanima/Warner return to Carlisle postcards, and the ending price of $103.61 was completely out of line for what they should have sold for. The thing that throws me off is that all of the postcards are printed with the words "Courtesy of Pierson K. Miller." I have never seen that before on any of the previous 1912 Thorpe/Carlisle postcards.

Were they reprints? It seems somewhat hard to believe that a postcard dedicated to Carlisle, Pa., would be reprinted. But I have never seen such a notation on any of previous 1912 Thorpe/Tewanima/Warner postcards before, so I am a bit confused. The postcard of "Thorpe Running the Ball" is also new to me.

Thanks in advance for any information. :)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jim-Thorpe-L...p2047675.l2557

My initial take on them is they are legitimate (can't be positive from scans) but maybe later than 1912?. I have handled numerous cards that had that kind of lithography on them and they were from the 1930s. The 1930s manager postcards come to mind. The stamp and other attributes, in person, should be able to help identify the year of mfg. Sweet pick up for someone, to me, even if they were printed in the later era.

IMO someone just stole a fantastic lot of legitimate postcards. Wish I'd seen them.

edited to add: I agree with Leon that they were printed later than 1912. Possibly 1930-40s.

Heh...guess I didn't edit, I just quoted myself. Newbie mistake. ;)

edited again to add: The last year you could send a postcard for one cent was 1951...these obviously pre-date that.

I was an underbidder because I felt they are clearly reprints. If you closely read the auction description, they were created at some point by a local, well known Carlisle collector who put his name on the back. My guess is that they were created sometime in the 70's or 80's.

Like I said, I have been looking for a Thorpe returns to Carlisle shot putting postcard for my personal collection for a while now. I definitely searched eBay a couple times within the past week to see what new items had been listed, but I usually set my filter at $50 or $75 to filter out modern junk.

I don't believe they are real. I own the Thorpe postcard and the ink has a blue tint, with no "courtesy of..." text.

Real one...
 

Here is my real one, cream colored card stock, with blue ink. Those just sold on ebay were reprints.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...pePostcard.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...ard%20back.jpg

Thanks to everyone who has weighed in. When I saw those postcards in the sold listings last night, it shocked me. It just seemed like obscure, local items to reprint. :)