N28 N29 Ginter General Questions
 

I have taken a liking to collecting the N28 and N29 cards over the past year. I was into modern since I was a kid growing up in the 90's and never had much interest into vintage. I went into an antique store and saw a heavily worn WF Carver N28 card and just fell in love with the N28s and I have just ran with them and the 29's.

I have some questions though just out of curiosity. So back when these were inserted into the cigarette packs, did you know you would get an N28 in a specific pack, or could you get an N2 at the time or another card that was being ran as well just as a random pull? Also, was it one specific type of cigarette or were there several different packs they could be found in?

N28 and N29 Packs
 

I believe that Virginia Brights was the most common brand of pack in which they could be found, though there were a few others.
If you want to see an entire run/collection of N28 and N29s, including used packs, albums, and coupons, then search back on my previous posts. I have since sold the 16 baseball subjects, but at one time I compiled the entire shebang.

I do not believe a buyer would know that a pack contained a card from a certain set. The A&G issues were released fairly quickly in the time frame. The packs in a case almost certainly would all have cards from the same set packed in, but the packs didn't change design or anything to tell which card would be in which pack. Even if a store had a display poster in the window for a particular set, that wasn't necessarily the same set as the set in that case the store was currently pulling from on a particular day, or from the same time of packout as a case a store down the street might be selling packs from. Depending how often they ordered inventory and in what bulk at the same time, a store could have a ton all from 1 set or different sets in different cases.

N28 is from 1888, likely deep into the year. Clarkson got to his team on his card in April of 1888, coupons show the related A16 album was available as of November 1, 1888. So it was a late 1888 issue, not 1887.

N29 refers to specific events up to October of 1888, and there are ads from August of 1889 for the release of the N29 banners (from which cutouts of the 'cards' are commonly seen) and so the set is from 1889. However, the time between when 'issued' and when stores ran out of packs with those cards may have been at quite some remove and people may have been getting 'new' cards well into 1890. Baseball collectors are historically very optimistic about early dating sets ahead of research.

I'm contenting myself with collecting only the boxers and sharpshooters, but they are all gorgeous cards.

Here's that post: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=240876
I still have everything but the baseball subjects (sigh...), which I wish I hadn't sold.