Interesting m101-4 info from 1972
 

I acquired a copy of the November 1972 edition of the Trader Speaks, and it appears that it was only then that the m101-4 cards were discovered to have back advertising for The Sporting News. Seems from the scan below that Buck Barker himself heralded the news. This is remarkable to me– that the set Burdick associated with TSN all those years prior was not found with any advertising back for that baseball periodical until 56 years after it was issued. This is particularly surprising since today TSN backs are far and away the most commonly found of all m101 advertisers (also surprising is that the other commonly found back–Famous and Barr– was not discovered until 1971). Finally, note that Bill Wambsganss himself confirmed that the m101-4 card supposedly depicting him instead shows Fritz Coumbe.

https://photos.imageevent.com/imover...s1972novp3.png

I have to think we can find some references to the different backs, The Sporting News included, before 1972. But maybe not. I am surprised, also, that Barker and his gang hadn't seen them before this. And I wonder if JR Burdick mentioned them somewhere earlier than this? Interesting to both of us, Todd!

And as I remember it this back wasn't catalogued around 25 yrs ago. I don't have many M101-5/4s any longer. Love the backs..
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https://luckeycards.com/m101holmesto.jpg

This doesn't make sense to me. Burdick catalogued the sets as M101-4 and M101-5. All of the other M101 sets are Sporting News sets. Burdick must have seen M101-4 Sporting News cards (and thought he saw M101-5 Sporting News cards). How could it possibly be that no one else saw a Sporting News back until 1972?

The impression I get is that Barker and his collector friends had not seen the back, but when they published their "find", lots of collectors piped-up that they had the SN backs. It is confusing. It is so much easier to study-up about any set today.

Cool stuff Todd. Thanks.

Leon, I have not seen any reference to the Sporting News backs in any prior hobby materials before 1972, many of which were posted here by David K. several years ago. Burdick acknowledges the bakery backs for Weil and Standard Biscuit, and the department store issue of H801-9 Globe Clothes. That's it. He lists M5 as distributed by the Sporting News, and in 1960 he changes the identification to m101-4 and m101-5, noting the slight differences in checklists. This was no doubt in response to Lionel Carter and Preston Orem's article in the Jul-Aug 1958 Sport Fan, which announced the "discovery" of m101-4. Since m101-5 does not carry TSN ad backs, the earliest an ad back would have been accepted in the hobby appears to be at that time, in 1958. However, neither Carter nor Orem makes mention of any ad back, and Burdick's 1960 ACC states that the two sets are alike, suggesting no ad backs had been seen.

It seems that Burdick based his ACC listings for "M5" all those years on the ads carried in the Sporting News rather than the cards themselves, although frankly, those ads never appeared until 1916 and Burdick listed it as a circa 1915 issue. Below is the initial offer and one of the many coupons, which altogether gave the complete checklist but never showed any pictures or mentioned an advertising back. The ads ran for ten weeks and were followed by others offering the cards as a subscription incentive but again, never showed pictures of any ad. So it is quite possible if not likely Burdick never actually saw the cards.
https://photos.imageevent.com/imover...introoffer.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/imover...916coupon7.jpg