Possible 3 Types of Ruth 1928 Harrington's
 

Type 1 “ No Quarts Back” The top 2 pictures, the back of the card has no
sentence for "Babe Ruth may be saved for quarts of ice cream"

Type 2 “Quarts Back”The middle 2 pictures the back of the card has the sentence for
"Babe Ruth may be saved for quarts of ice cream"

Type 3 “Apostrophe Ruth”The last 2 pictures same back as Type 2
but the apostrophe before the '(6) on the front.

Type 1 & Type 2 have the same border notch lower left side

apostrophe can used be for omission of letters or numbers

The first 4 pictures or from the internet the last 2 or mine

I know nothing about these cards, but looks like three variations to me...

Now Ruth master set collectors are going to go nuts!! I can barely afford the tax on most nice Ruth's nowadays.

To the OP's point, nice discovery. It's little things like this that help keep collecting ineresting.
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I LOVE this kind of stuff.

And those of us with what I think of as a "Topps variation" mindset, note that the "A" in the word "Also" on the back of the Type 3 “Apostrophe Ruth” is cut off at the top.

I noticed that too with the cut off A in Also , it’s consistent with the other graded “Apostrophe Ruth’s” that I have seen online.

I would like to find out more about the Type 3 “Apostrophe Ruth” such as, was it an unintentional printer’s flaw with the apostrophe/mark on front. Could it have been used for the promotion of “Save the Ruth cards for quarts of ice cream” for example a certain amount of Ruth cards plus 1 Apostrophe Ruth card or a certain amount of Apostrophe Ruth cards to get the quart of ice cream. Was it when the Ruth cards were turned in , the “ Apostrophe Ruth” would replace those cards given to the Harrington’s in exchange for a quart of ice cream, and the cards turned in would be destroyed.

That would mean that stores would have had to have a supply of the apostrophe cards waiting to be exchanged which is highly unlikely.

I would think they would have all cards on hand to be handed out with each ice cream purchase or redemption. Just like Dairy Queen Team USA baseball cards were handed out with a purchase of the USA helmet sundae.

Is that how the cards were distributed, at the store with a purchase of ice cream?

If that's the case, with a Ruth card being worth a free ice cream, it seems like they would have less of them, or at least hand them out less frequently.

Also, I don't see them replacing your card when you turn it in for your free ice cream, I just see them giving you an ice cream.

I would think the Ruth would be taken for the Ice Cream Novelty and not given back but for the quarts of Ice Cream, who knows, it could be a corrected printing flaw or a gimmick needed for the quart of Ice Cream thank you for your responses it’s a mystery

What are your thoughts?

I think it's a typo.

I think it has nothing having to do with the redemption(s), and I think when cards were redeemed (Ruth for the single, a full set for a gallon) nobody got any cards back in the deal, just ice cream.

Am I possibly wrong? Absolutely, but it would make no sense for cards to be returned to the person redeeming them for ice cream. That would mean variations of cards that shopkeepers would have needed to keep track of, and effectively two different supplies of cards used for two different reasons and that's more work than any shopkeeper would care to be involved in, and that's not to mention the possible employees of those shopkeepers, and it's all just a recipe for disaster for the shop inventory.

I agree it is most likely an incorrect typeset or unintended stray mark, but I do believe it's possible for the cards to have been returned with the ice cream redemption. It would be easy for the store owner to simply stamp cancelled on the redeemed cards or hole punch them-- it has been done with other card sets. Of course, the lack of any surviving cards with these qualities (to my knowledge anyway) suggests that if it happened that way, it wasn't very often.

I agree with you that it's possible cards could have been returned, but only if they were marked as you mention, not with a different card. But if that were the case I would think that the majority of surviving examples would have been marked as redeemed. Especially the Ruth.

It makes more sense that it is a mark from the print process along with the cut off “A”