D304 issue date theories and checklists for each brand

[brianp-beme]

The D304 General Baking Company set (which consists of five backs: Brunners, Butter Krust, General Baking, Martens and Weber) has traditionally been identified as having been issued between 1911 and 1914. I believe that, based upon team movement of certain players in the 25 card set, the makeup of available cards for each back, a few newspaper ads that have been unearthed, and even the creation of the General Baking Company itself, that this set was first issued in 1912 for two of the brands, and then again in 1914 for the other three brands.

I believe that 1911 was determined by our hobby forefathers to be the initial issue date based upon the fact that all 25 players were in the major leagues in 1910, and that all 25 players were with the team designated on the cards in 1911 (with one notable exception, which will be discussed later). Cards of the two most commonly found brands, Brunners and Butter Krust, were issued first, as all 25 players are available in both brands (based upon previous observation by others for the Brunners back, and as the result of my checking the PSA and SGC population reports for the Butter Krust back). Also, the five blacked out team name variation cards (Chance, Chase, Crandall, Evers and Herzog) are not available with these two backs, the black bars being placed on these variation cards at the later issue date to cover up the team designations of players no longer with that team. All five players with these blacked out variations are available with the General Baking back, and four (Chance, Chase, Crandall and Evers) are known for the Martens back, while two players with these black outs (Chance and Crandall) are currently known for the Weber back.

Let’s first consider the General Baking Company angle. The General Baking Company was formed from a group of 19 existing baking businesses from a variety of larger cities between New Orleans and Boston, and incorporated in New York State on June 6, 1911. Four of the five backs indicate, either by name or initials, the General Baking Company name. Martens is the one exception, but based upon the blacked out team name updates present in the set, the Martens backed cards were issued a few years later. This of course makes an issue date for any of the backs before June 6, 1911 an impossibility.

Next, there are four players in the set that push the earliest date of issue to even later in 1911, based upon the team designations seen on the cards with Brunners and Butter Krust backs. These four players, along with the team designations seen on each card, are noted below:


Charles Herzog, NY Giants – obtained by Giants July 22, 1911

Marty O’Toole, Pittsburgh Pirates – obtained by Pirates July 22, 1911

M. (Billy) Kelly, Pittsburgh Pirates – obtained by Pirates July 27, 1911

Cy Young, Boston Braves (National League) – obtained by Braves August 11, 1911


Thus, if these 25 cards were released all at the same time, then the earliest that they could have been issued would be the middle to the end of August, 1911, based upon the inclusion of Cy Young as Boston Brave. However, there were a series of Brunners Bread ads from 1912 Buffalo newspapers that have been located courtesy of Net54 members Pat R and oldeboo (Trey), who unearthed and shared them in this thread :

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?p=2163994.

A couple of these ads (from May 12, 1912 and July 11, 1912) possibly suggest the entire set of 25 cards were available at one time, with a card packed in each loaf.

Brunnersad1.jpg

Brunnersad2.jpg

Prior Brunners Bread ads before this May 1912 time frame that have been located have no mention of baseball cards. It leads one to believe that the two most common back cards, Brunners Bread and Butter Krust, were not issued in later 1911, but instead closer to the May 1912 time frame. There is some supporting evidence for this 1912 date involving Arthur (Tillie) Shafer, the notable exception mentioned previously (that each of the 25 players in the set were on the same team in 1911 as is designated on their card).

Arthur (Tillie) Shafer only played 29 games for the Giants in 1910. According to his SABR biography, in the winter of 1910-11 he travelled to Japan to help train baseball to a team at a Japanese university, and when he arrived back in California in mid-February of 1911, he found out that, while he was overseas, he had been traded by New York Giants manager John McGraw to the Boston Braves on January 20th, 1911, but that trade had later been vetoed by Braves president William Russell. This situation upset Shafer to the extent that he quit the Giants and enrolled at Stanford University. He stayed away from the Giants the entire 1911 season and was officially suspended. After coaxing from the Giants, Shafer finally decided to rejoin the club in February 1912 for spring training. He played a total of 216 games for the Giants in 1912 and 1913, and announced his retirement from baseball in December 16th, 1913.

Since the General Baking Company was not incorporated until June 11, 1911, I find it unlikely that they would have included Shafer in a set issued in 1911, being that he had played sparingly in 1910 and not at all in 1911. His return to Giants in February of 1912 would have likely triggered his inclusion in the set, and thus conceivably pushes the earliest likely date of issue for the Brunners and Butter Krust backs to the middle of February 1912.

There are two players in the set that ended their major league careers in 1911, but had an ongoing involvement with their respective teams into 1912. Fred Tenney, of the Braves (incorrectly spelled as ‘Tenny’ on his D304 cards) was released from the Giants after the 1909 season, spent the 1910 season in the minor leagues, and was signed as player/manager for the Braves in 1911, with his MLB career over at the end of the season. Even though he was under contract to manage the Braves for 1912, Tenney was released on March 20, 1912, but was paid in 1912 to NOT manage the 1912 Braves team.

Cy Young of the Boston Braves is the other. Cy was picked up by the Boston Braves on August 11th, 1911, and pitched the rest of the year for them (his last in baseball). According to his SABR biography, "Despite much speculation that he would retire, Young attempted to hang on with the Rustlers (later known as the Braves) for the 1912 season, remaining with the team through spring training and warming the bench for the first month of the campaign. But a chronically sore arm prevented Young from ever taking the field; when he attempted to do so, on May 23, he gave up after a brief warmup session, declaring, “It’s no use. I’m not going on."

Unfortunately the inclusion of George Bell of the Dodgers, who also ended his major league career in 1911, muddies up the mid-February to May 1912 issue date. He was released by the Dodgers on September 21, 1911. If 1912 is the new potential issue date for Brunner and Butter Krust, perhaps Bell’s inclusion in the set and as a Dodger was an oversight by the makers. I believe that the overwhelming amount of evidence, despite the inclusion of Bell, point to a mid-February to May 1912 (May being when ads began mentioning cards being packaged with the loaves of bread) issue date.

Now we can look at the factors involved with the dating of the other three less common D304 brands, General Baking, Martens and Weber. First off it must be noted that, unlike the Brunners and Butter Krust brands, all 25 players have not currently been verified to exist for these three backs. With a certain amount of searching, and having checked both the PSA and SGC population reports, I have determined it to be very probable that there are 21 available D304 cards with the General Baking brand backs, with Bell, Shafer, Tenney and Young not seen. For the Martens back, there are currently 20 cards known to be available, with the four players not seen in the General Baking set being also not verified with the Martens back, and Herzog as the additional player to make it five unverified with Martens. The Weber brand has the least amount of verified players, with only 12 having been identified. The same four players (Bell, Shaffer, Tenney and Young) are missing as is the case in both the General Baking and Martens backs, as well as the Herzog that is missing in the Martens set. Additionally for the Weber back the following are unverified for these eight players: Baker, Chase, Cobb, Crawford, Evers, Mathewson, O’Toole, and Rucker.

Three of the four players missing from all three of these sets (Bell, Tenney and Young) share a similar timeline aspect that the other 22 players in the D304 do not. They were all out of the major leagues starting in 1912. The fourth player, Shaffer, played full years in 1912 and 1913, and announced his retirement on December 16, 1913. Shafer is the player mentioned earlier that missed the entire 1911 season, and did not rejoin his team (the Giants) until February of 1912. The fact that these four inactive players were excluded from the three less common backs makes sense, but based upon this information alone, it is inconclusive whether these three backs were issued in 1912, or at a later date.

What we can definitively rely upon for the issue timeline is the blocked out team designations that appear exclusively with cards having the General Baking, Martens and Weber backs. The five players with blocked out team variations (non-blocked out team versions are not seen with these three later issued backs) have their playing info for the 1911 to 1914 stretch of seasons listed below. For the 1911 season they all played for the team seen in their non-blocked out team card versions. They are listed in order of each player’s departure from the team designated on their Brunner’s Bread and Butter Krust cards:


Frank Chance – played/managed Cubs in 1911 and then through the 1912 season. He was picked up by the Reds on November 9, 1912, and then by Yankees on December 11, 1912. He was player/manager (by this time only rarely as a player) for the Yankees in 1913 and 1914.

Hal Chase – played for the Yankees in 1911 and then until June 1, 1913, when he was obtained by the White Sox. In 1914 he jumped to the Federal League to play for the Buffalo team.

Otis ‘Doc’ Crandall – played for the Giants in 1911 and then until August 6, 1913 when obtained by Cardinals (ended up not pitching for Cardinals, but pinch-hit for them in two games), then re-obtained on August 19, 1913 by the Giants. Before the start of the 1914 season (April 13, 1914) Crandall jumped to the Federal League to play for the St. Louis team.

Charles ‘Buck’ Herzog – played for the Giants starting July 22, 1911, and then through the 1913 season. He was obtained by the Reds on December 11, 1913

Johnny Evers – played for the Cubs in 1911 and through 1913 season. He signed to play with the Boston Braves on February 11, 1914.


So for the Weber brand, since only two of the five players (Chance and Crandall) with blocked out teams are currently known for this back, Doc Crandall is the player that determines the earliest date the Weber cards could have been issued, which is around mid-August of 1913. Even though the window is fairly small for when he was not on the Giants in 1913 (13 days), there is a slight possibility that his blocked out card could have produced during this time stretch. I think it is more likely mid-February of 1914 is the earliest date of issuance, which would line up with the final two brands to discuss.

The General Baking and Martens brand issue date is likely the same as the Weber brand due to both the General Baking and Martens known D304 cards set includes the blocked out version of the Johnny Evers card. Because Evers signed with the Braves on February 11, 1914, I believe that both of these sets have a mid-February earliest release date time frame. I also believe these three sets (General Baking, Martens and Weber) were likely issued at the latest within the year of 1914, as two of the sets subjects concluded their careers by the end of the 1914 season - Frank Chance and Marty O’Toole. It would be interesting if General Baking Company ran any ads mentioning baseball cards in the 1913 or 1914 time frame involving these three later issued brands. Perhaps this could be a tediously fun project for folks with access to online newspaper archives.

One fly in the ointment is Billy Kelly of the Pirates, who is included in all five sets yet played his last major league game October 5, 1913. I did read one source that indicated he was sold to Toronto of the International League sometime after the conclusion of the 1913 season, but this reference did not include the actual date so this possibly could have been months later. What would ointment be without a fly or two in it?


In conclusion, here are my views on the earliest release dates for each brand, based on the endless information I provided above:


Brunners Bread
d304brunnersback.jpeg

Mid-February 1912, but likely around May due to newspaper ads for the cards


Butter Krust
d304butterkrustback.jpg

Mid-February 1912, but likely around May due to newspaper ads for the cards


General Baking
d304generalbakingback.jpg

At the earliest mid-February 1914, and before the beginning of the 1915 season - Update - See Todd's post (#15) that indicates a possibility that the General Baking back may be a multi-year issue, possibly as early as 1912, due to the availability of Chance with this back that does not have team name blacked out


Martens
d304martensback.jpg

At the earliest mid-February 1914, and before the beginning of the 1915 season


Weber
d304weberback.jpg

At the earliest mid-February 1914, and before the beginning of the 1915 season


Of course these are the possible printing dates based upon what I could piece together. Perhaps you can offer alternatives or additional information to this…I will gladly update if it makes sense.

In the following post I will list the known subjects for each of the five different backs.


Brian

[brianp-beme]

Here are the listings of known subjects broken down for each of the five D304 backs , something I have not seen published before. Please let us know of any additions or corrections to these listings. I did depend heavily on the PSA and SGC population reports when creating these lists, and of course there could be errors or omissions.


Brunner’s Bread – 25 in set

Baker
Barry
Bell
Bender
Chance (team name NOT blacked out)
Chase (team name NOT blacked out)
Cobb
Collins
Crandall (team name NOT blacked out)
Crawford
Evers (team name NOT blacked out)
Fletcher
Herzog (team name NOT blacked out)
Kelly
Lajoie
Marquard
Mathewson
Merkle
Meyers
O’Toole
Rucker
Shafer
Tenny (Tenney)
Wagner
Young

Butter Krust – 25 in set

Baker
Barry
Bell
Bender
Chance (team name NOT blacked out)
Chase (team name NOT blacked out)
Cobb
Collins
Crandall (team name NOT blacked out)
Crawford
Evers (team name NOT blacked out)
Fletcher
Herzog (team name NOT blacked out)
Kelly
Lajoie
Marquard
Mathewson
Merkle
Meyers
O’Toole
Rucker
Shafer
Tenny (Tenney)
Wagner
Young

General Baking – 22 known (missing Bell, Shafer, Tenney, Young)

Baker
Barry
Bender
Chance (team name NOT blacked out) - addition to this list thanks to Todd
Chance (team name blacked out)
Chase (team name blacked out)
Cobb
Collins
Crandall (team name blacked out)
Crawford
Evers (team name blacked out)
Fletcher
Herzog (team name blacked out)
Kelly
Lajoie
Marquard
Mathewson
Merkle
Meyers
O’Toole
Rucker
Wagner

Martens – 20 known (missing Bell, Herzog – name blacked out, Schafer, Tenney, Young)

Baker
Barry
Bender
Chance (team name blacked out)
Chase (team name blacked out)
Cobb
Collins
Crandall (team name blacked out)
Crawford
Evers (team name blacked out)
Fletcher
Kelly
Lajoie
Marquard
Mathewson
Merkle
Meyers
O’Toole
Rucker
Wagner

Weber – 12 known (missing Baker, Bell, Chase – name blocked out, Cobb, Crawford, Evers – team blacked out, Herzog – team blacked out, Mathewson, O’Toole, Rucker, Shafer, Tenney, Young)

Barry
Bender
Chance (team name blacked out)
Collins
Crandall (team name blacked out)
Fletcher
Kelly
Lajoie
Marquard
Merkle
Meyers
Wagner


Brian

[gabrinus]

Thanks Brian...I've got an ungraded Weber Lajoie...I didn't know if that was the one you checklisted or if there is another...Jerry

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by gabrinus

Thanks Brian...I've got an ungraded Weber Lajoie...I didn't know if that was the one you checklisted or if there is another...Jerry

Hi Jerry, thanks. Lajoie for the Weber brand was previously verified and is on the checklist on the second post, but it doesn't hurt to have it reverified. And having a Lajoie with the Weber brand ain't too shabby either.


Brian

[JimC]

Fantastic information.

[t213]

Brian,

Thanks for assembling this great info. For tougher backs, I have a General Baking Collins and Webers Merkle.

Andy

[brianp-beme]

Thanks Jim and Andy. Brunners back cards are very cool, but I have always thought that a D304 card with any of the other backs added that little bit of special sauce to an already cool card from this set.

Brian

[Casey2296]

Great info Brian, this is one of those posts that should be archived for its content.

[gabrinus]

Thanks again Brian...Jerry

[toppcat]

Wow, some great research-stick this one in the Net54 Archive Center!

[darwinbulldog]

You're a gentleman and a scholar. Thank you for sharing your research.

[brianp-beme]

Thanks Dave and Glenn.

I have added images of the five backs to the end of the first post as a nice visual for what I was back-talking about. The scans came from an article about the set on the Sports Collectors Daily site. I have always thought the Brunners backs could be easily confused as Butter Krust, due to the Brunners back also having 'Butter Krust' so boldly and prominently printed beneath 'Brunners'.

Brian

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by gabrinus

Thanks Brian...I've got an ungraded Weber Lajoie...I didn't know if that was the one you checklisted or if there is another...Jerry

Hi Jerry...I just realized I didn't quite answer your question previously. There is one Weber Lajoie (graded as a 4) on the SGC population report, and that is where I got my information from to include it on my known cards with Weber backs checklist. PSA does not show having graded any examples.

So with your example, the world knows of at least two.


Brian

[nolemmings]

Brian,
Nice research. You may want to consult an OC article from 2007 (Issue 11) that does an extensive analysis of these sets. I agree that the initial distribution date for the early two sets--Brunners and Fleischmann's-- is most likely 1912 for reasons you have stated.
I did see a few ads for Martens and Weber Bakeries in the 1913 and 1914 papers from newspapers.com, and there was no mention of the cards:

As you can see, there was an ad for some sort of game [insert dirty joke here], so the bakeries should not have been averse to advertising the cards. No luck so far, although there are obviously other newspaper sites. Note that the Martens bakery appears to have been located in Jersey City, if that was not known already.

[nolemmings]

I think it likely that Brunners and Fleischmann stopped after 1912, since their sets lack the blacked-out team info, and it would be less effective to market the identical 25 cards in following years. I also thought 1913 may have been skipped altogether because of the Evers blacked-out card in all of these sets (Weber unknown), which would not have been made until 1914. However, the author of the OC article states that the Frank Chance can be found with or without the team blackout in General Baking, which suggests multiple printings for that set that may have spanned two or more seasons. Maybe this is limited to General Baking, which was not tied to any particular bakery and thus could have been issued in multiple areas.
Finally, as for Billy Kelly, a look at some of the newspapers of the time shows that he and Marty O'Toole were practically joined at the hip from their days in St. Paul to the big leagues-- it was even hinted that O'Toole would not be sold to the many teams bidding on him unless Kelly was part of the deal, and the catcher was given loads of credit for his battery mate's success. This could explain why Kelly was included at the time. He was dumped by the Pirates in November 1913, however, which would not explain his inclusion in a 1914 release. He was initially dealt to Toronto in November but shortly thereafter landed in Newark, which could explain the New Jersey Bakeries' desire to keep him in the set, although one might have thought his team name would have been blacked out.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Brian,
Nice research. You may want to consult an OC article from 2007 (Issue 11) that does an extensive analysis of these sets. I agree that the initial distribution date for the early two sets--Brunners and Fleischmann's-- is most likely 1912 for reasons you have stated.
I did see a few ads for Martens and Weber Bakeries in the 1913 and 1914 papers from newspapers.com, and there was no mention of the cards:

As you can see, there was an ad for some sort of game [insert dirty joke here], so the bakeries should not have been averse to advertising the cards. No luck so far, although there are obviously other newspaper sites. Note that the Martens bakery appears to have been located in Jersey City, if that was not known already.

Great information and ads Todd. I would assume newspaper advertising for the Martens and Weber baseball cards would be out there, but perhaps its current elusiveness is also an indicator for why these two backs are tough to come by. It is interesting to note that the two least common card backs, Martens and Weber, were evidently both New Jersey bakeries.

Brian

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

I think it likely that Brunners and Fleischmann stopped after 1912, since their sets lack the blacked-out team info, and it would be less effective to market the identical 25 cards in following years. I also thought 1913 may have been skipped altogether because of the Evers blacked-out card in all of these sets (Weber unknown), which would not have been made until 1914. However, the author of the OC article states that the Frank Chance can be found with or without the team blackout in General Baking, which suggests multiple printings for that set that may have spanned two or more seasons. Maybe this is limited to General Baking, which was not tied to any particular bakery and thus could have been issued in multiple areas.
Finally, as for Billy Kelly, a look at some of the newspapers of the time shows that he and Marty O'Toole were practically joined at the hip from their days in St. Paul to the big leagues-- it was even hinted that O'Toole would not be sold to the many teams bidding on him unless Kelly was part of the deal, and the catcher was given loads of credit for his battery mate's success. This could explain why Kelly was included at the time. He was dumped by the Pirates in November 1913, however, which would not explain his inclusion in a 1914 release. He was initially dealt to Toronto in November but shortly thereafter landed in Newark, which could explain the New Jersey Bakeries' desire to keep him in the set, although one might have thought his team name would have been blacked out.

In the SGC population report for the General Baking back I did notice two listings for Frank Chance, one being Chance with a 'No Team' identifier, and the other listing Chance with no identifier. I didn't want to assume that the no identifier listing indicated a Chance existed in General Baking that did not have the team name blacked out. But being that the Old Cardboard article identifies a Chance with team existing, it does seem to point to this back being released in some form as early as 1912, as Chance was still a member of the Cubs until late 1912. And since General Baking was the parent company and thus a General Baking back would not have tied the inclusion of a card into the loaves of a specific bakery is a good, valid point. Because of your mention of all of this, I think I will change the original post with an update pointing out your post, to reflect this General Baking multi-year possibility.

And the Kelly playing for Newark in 1914 ties in perfectly with the both the two New Jersey bakeries (Martens and Weber) keeping him in the set, as well as him being in the General Baking set (since this set could have been issued in 1912 or 1913 as well). I was thinking it odd that he was still included in these three sets even though he was no longer with the Pirates at the end of 1913. Team name not being blacked out in the Martens and Weber sets is a little curious mystery.

Good stuff Todd!


Brian

[gabrinus]

Martens was always assumed to be rarer than Weber but in my experience and your checklist it looks like that may not be the case...granted I know checklists are never complete...Jerry

[Leon]

Originally Posted by gabrinus

Martens was always assumed to be rarer than Weber but in my experience and your checklist it looks like that may not be the case...granted I know checklists are never complete...Jerry

There were a couple of very small finds of Martens (one had the little puple star stamps on back), not so much the Webers, as far as I know.

Nice research Brian and Todd....Thanks for the efforts.



Again, from my Previous collection but to give a nice visual of the ads

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