N566 Newsboy Pugilists and their variations

[G1911]

#73 Peter Jackson comes in two poses again. They seem to be photos taken just seconds apart. While there are many points of differentiation, the easiest is that one has his left foot angled and the other has his left foot straight. The angled foot version is less common in my experience. I really regret not keeping scans from this series until recently, because I am confident there are more versions of it than this, and this one is so bad I can't make out all the details, but the first image attached is the angled foot picture.

For the foot straight picture, we have:
2 - Font 2, no number, name on mount
3 - Font 1, number in photo, name on mount
4 - Font 1 , number in photo and on mount, name on mount
5 - Font 2, nothing in photo, number and name both on mount

[G1911]

That's it for group 1.

The second group is numbered 301-390, possibly higher than that. They have green rather than red mount styling, and the stock is more of a grey. Photo quality is usually much, much better than for group 1 in hand. I don't have a 347 Corbett but my actresses are markedly improved in the photo quality, I believe they are a slightly different method of producing the photo and have more of a 'shine' to them. They usually bear a copyright dare from B.J. Falk's photography studio, with the date varying by the subject.

differences I am aware of is that the number can appear in the photo or only on the mount, and the 'New York' is printed in cursive or standard lettering.

In addition, while most cards are found blank backed, a minority of them have advertising for several different products. Bliss Long cut, Red Indian Cut Plug tobacco, a different ad for "Red Indian Tobacco" without the cut plug, and Havana Tobacco's. There may be more. Reeve reports the ad backs have the photos in more of a sepia than a black and white, which matches with my actresses, so we can probably tell an ad back from the front.

I have found several specimens of #347 Corbett, using a different portrait photograph, all of which have no number in the photo and the standard block lettering of "New York". It is possible there is another version with the copyright line next to his name missing.

It is likely he comes with at least some of the tough advertising backs, or did originally. Warshaw's book reports the Red Indian Cut Plug back on a 347 Corbett, but I have not seen a picture of this copy. The ad backs of any kind are scarce.

Since this is the boxing/wrestling board, I want to note William Muldoon is number 374 in this series.

[G1911]

Next is the third group, which stars numbering over at 1. Most numbers do not actually exist, and make no consistent sense. There are huge gaps and than a random number. There are only 2 over 1000, but the highest number I have found someone mention is 1376.

#966 is Bob Fitzsimmons. These seem to all have the name and number in the photo only, restricting our differences. Fitzsimmons Newsboys are rare, I have not seen many to say the least. Attached is a font 2. In these high numbers, this font seems to be the more common and font 1 tougher, though at least some of the subjects in the 900 range come with font 1 mounts. I expect we are missing 1 of the 2 versions I expect to exist.

Fitzsimmons also comes as a Campbell. Unlike #72 Corbett, I think Campbell is actually more common on Fitzsimmons than Newsboy. Attached are 3 examples I found, without any variation. The cropping, again, is the result of the pictures being cut and glued on to them, pretty much every card will be marginally different in size and thus what is shown.

[G1911]

Next, number 1065 or 1068. I can't tell which, different people checklist it with either number. EDIT - Identified to be 1068 in post #23

As far as I know - this is the only Sullivan that has surfaced, with font 1. I've never seen another.

In theory, there could be a Campbell and there should be the other font. There might be nothing to look for here, if the numbering was in someways sequential this might be the very end of production and the card barely issued. I don't know.

[G1911]

Last, is this 'checklist' card showing many of the photos on a blank mount that appears to be reminiscent of a Newsboy mount. Top row, middle is John L. Sullivan in a portrait pose known on other cabinet cards.

I have never seen a Newsboy with this pose. I'm not at all sure this is a Newsboy card, but it might be. SGC has slabbed it as one, but they often make up things.

[D. Bergin]

Another great project Greg.

Here's two I found in my files, but it looks like you have both styles accounted for already.

Probably had a bunch of other Newsboy images further back in my floppy disc archival days, but those are probably lost forever to time and apathy.

[RCMcKenzie]

Here's the Jackson I have. Are they all not the same photo cropped a little differently by each mount?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Another great project Greg.

Here's two I found in my files, but it looks like you have both styles accounted for already.

Probably had a bunch of other Newsboy images further back in my floppy disc archival days, but those are probably lost forever to time and apathy.

You know, I am very grateful that consolidating all of my notes includes only having to pull off old disc drives with a flash drive and translating my chicken scratch into actual English words instead of figuring how a floppy drive can be read by a modern computer .

On the other hand, a lot of pre early 2000's boxing stuff seems to be 'lost knowledge' area. Even some stuff that made into Jones' book then got 'forgot' by the hobby, like that T219 Red Cross is a different physical size than the other T219's. The stuff that didn't is a hodge podge of often vague memories. A stack of floppy's recording late 90's boxing would probably have significant value - a lot of notable cards then won't have actually appeared back in the hobby again. One of the things that makes baseball so much easier is that there are very few 'lost knowledge' cards; someone has a story to tell and does about pretty much every odd T206 that has appeared since the 1970's. We don't seem to have a long oral tradition with boxing and documentation is limited to like 2 or 3 places of very broad focus.