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Tom L.Here's what is involved with collecting just one team...
I collect Baltimore players and those with a Baltimore connection. Ignoring the latter, there are 24 different players listed with Baltimore (AA), plus 2 two-player cards. There is also one 1887 script card - "Phenomenal" Smith - which is quite distinct from Smith's later cards. Thus I consider the basic team set complete at 27 different cards.
However, for a full team variation set: If you counted just the cards listing Baltimore as the team, and tried to acquire all poses and variations (e.g. 1888 version, 1889 version, spelling variations such as those with Shindle and Cantz, etc.) you are up to over 140 different cards. [That doesn't include identical poses with other teams, poses that have no Orioles counterpart, etc.]
And Baltimore is a team that has only one 1887 card (Smith script, as mentioned above), and no PL or NL cards from 1890 (players such as Foreman and Shindle have identical poses but are listed with new teams). So you are probably looking at well upwards of 300 different cards for each of the National League teams with cards issued every year from 1887 through 1890.
By the way, I still need just the Horning (Hornung) Baltimore card to complete my basic team set. Can anybody help? (If so, please e-mail me at wtl.jr@comcast.net )
Thanks,
Tom Lawrie