[G1911]

Due to an unfortunate loss of a hard drive, most of my archive for C, E and N1-N300 cards are only from the last few years. I am left largely with my textual notes that begin in 2003 to go further back, and I am always reluctant to trust my own word and notebooks if I cannot prove them.

N174 is one of the cataloguing choices that bugs me most in Burdick's inconsistent system. He grouped a lot of the N sets around subject matter, without any interest in actual sets as issued, different from how he did T cards. N174 is not a real set, but a made-up compilation of any photographic cards from Goodwin's Old Judge and Gypsy Queen brands that don't feature baseball players or actresses (mostly boxers). N171 and N172 cards are often actually from the same sets as these subjects.

I think the evidence suggests that there are 7 different, distinct issued sets with boxers grouped into N174, that come in 10 or 11 different types and issued from 1887 through 1889-1890. Some of them are fairly common and some of them are very rare. Extant checklists have cards I don't have a picture of but I do not doubt exist, and are missing a couple I have pictures of.

I'm going to break them out by set and share what I have for each set in it's own reply because it's too many to attach to a single post. I hope you folks might be able to help flesh out my archive, or just share some cool Old Judge cards. I do not really collect this set much, or N332 - they are wonderful documentation of a great era of boxing, but it is unfortunate that the cards have physically aged so poorly, with the original black and white appearance and image sharpness deteriorated in even the best examples I have seen.


Sets:
N174-1 - Old Judge banner, cursive script names with Wood credit
N174-2 - Old Judge banner, no 0 prefix in the number in upper right
N174-3 - Old Judge banner, with a 0 prefix in the number in upper right
N174-4 - Gypsy Queen Arch N175 style cards
N174-5 - N332 style wavy banner branding, 2 types
N175-6 - UK "Cigarettes" release with Jem Smith
N174-7 - Australia "Cigarette Factory" release, with 3 or 4 different types