Something strange I noticed about 1888 Goodwin Champions

Has anyone else noticed the subtle differences on the backs of the 1888 Goodwin Champions cards? One version has two lines at the bottom which read, "Goodwin & Co." with "New York." underneath, while the other includes a 3rd line which reads, "Geo S Harris & Sons, Lith Phila.". I found this interesting so I did some research (like 15 mins worth) and have only found two baseball players (Glasscock and Keefe) so far that I can confirm being found with both back variations.

Does anyone know why the difference and is this something that has been discussed before? I find it rather interesting and wonder if these two variations might have been printed in different locations or if one might be more rare than the other?

Here's a link that will allow you to quickly see what I'm talking about. It does not include two different examples of the Glasscock and Keefe but I was able to locate each on cardtarget.com.

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Gallery...hampions-(N162)

Insert sound of crickets chirping. Anyone have a thought on this? Please someone chime in!

[petecld]

I was told years ago that the cards without the lithographer credit were circulated in Australia. Since there was US baseball exhibition there in December 1888 it seemed possible.

I have dealt with two N162 collections from Australia and both had cards without the credit. This appears to be the answer at last based on my experience until proven otherwise.

Peter

Interesting. Thanks Peter!

[tedzan]

This subject was covered back in 2008 on this forum. Check-out this link......

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...Sons+trademark


We ran a survey whose results indicated that all 50 cards in the N162 set can be found with and without this Trademark.


TED Z
.

Thanks Ted Z.! Pretty sure I didn't even know 19th Century cards existed in 2008.