Question about Herpolsheimer's 1921 cards

[Archive]

Posted By: Joann

I've noticed that many (even most) of the mysterious 1921 Herp's cards have some kind of bleed-through or something that causes a ghost of the bold "braided" border on the back to appear on the front. Scans below, but not very good ones.

So I got to wondering how or why this could be. Issues where this effect is well-known (the 33 Goudey's being the prime example) are very large run, mainstream issues. Sheets were stacked upon one another before the ink was dry, causing a slight transfer to the next card.

But the Herp's issue was a total of only 69 cards. How many sheets could there have been? Maybe 3 sheets of 24 each? 2 of 36?

No matter what configuration, there could NOT have been many sheets. So why would they be stacked so neatly that many cards have the condition? Who stacks three sheets? Or two? And could that few sheets weigh enough to transfer the image? Or were there more sheets, and if so where are the rest of the cards?

Also, one theory of these cards is that they were a sample or proof set. In that case, wouldn't there be more care taken to assure that they were extra-nice looking and not have this kind of condition?

It's possible that the braid image from the front is from overstamping the back somehow, so that each card has the braid from it's own back somehow pressed into the front. This would require no stacking at all. However, from looking at the card I have I'm not sure the braid on the back lines up with the image on the front.

Finally, as I was thinking of this I get to the biggest question of all. I couldn't come up with any reasonable sheet configuration that didn't result in a total of 72 cards. Where are the other three? Who were they?