Bryan, great work and very nice thread. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful replies this far.
I hope it doesn't derail the conversation, but I'd like to ask the following question in the context of the printing process discussion (although not specifically about the Murr'y):
Is this scenario possible? (Think of it as hypothesis #4
They keep the name types around and reuse them... And they aren't connected to the team names.
Perhaps the factory worker Murr'y conversation went like this:
One printer says to another:
"Yo Bubba, the Murr'y is messed up. Put in Murray."
Bubba puts in a better name plate but the Murr'y gets tossed to the side.
Later, Bubba just gets careless or lazy and starts using Murr'y again, resulting in other backs receiving newly printed sheets with Murr'y, but printed at a later date.
Evidence? Check out this T215-2 Steinfeldt (and the T215-1 Steinfeldt for reference).
The T215-2 name is in T206/T215-1 font, but the team name is in Type 2 font as the team name changed from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The Type 1 and Type 2 cards are a few years apart.
This is the only T215-2 player that I am aware of that has any Type 1 font, and it's like this on both examples of the Type 2 Steinfeldt that I've seen.
So what happened here? Any relation to how multiple Murr'y backs are found?
Steve