[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

I think it's a typo.

I think it has nothing having to do with the redemption(s), and I think when cards were redeemed (Ruth for the single, a full set for a gallon) nobody got any cards back in the deal, just ice cream.

Am I possibly wrong? Absolutely, but it would make no sense for cards to be returned to the person redeeming them for ice cream. That would mean variations of cards that shopkeepers would have needed to keep track of, and effectively two different supplies of cards used for two different reasons and that's more work than any shopkeeper would care to be involved in, and that's not to mention the possible employees of those shopkeepers, and it's all just a recipe for disaster for the shop inventory.

I agree it is most likely an incorrect typeset or unintended stray mark, but I do believe it's possible for the cards to have been returned with the ice cream redemption. It would be easy for the store owner to simply stamp cancelled on the redeemed cards or hole punch them-- it has been done with other card sets. Of course, the lack of any surviving cards with these qualities (to my knowledge anyway) suggests that if it happened that way, it wasn't very often.