Posted By:
MillerhouseI can answer most, if not all, of the questions raised by this thread. The original advertising piece from which the Ebay Clarke was cut was approximately 14" x 21". A deep blue "Boston Garter" appeared across the top and was cut off. To the right of Clarke and also cut off was a depiction of a garter in a circle; to its right was the front of the card of Chance.
Actual fronts of the 1912 Boston Garters were used and affixed to the ad pieces. If you run your finger across the surface of the ad, this becomes immediately apparent. My guess is that the fronts and backs of the actual cards themselves were printed separately and then attached to form the cards distributed to the Boston Garter dealers. That would make the provision of the fronts to be attached to the ad pieces quite simple.
There are, to my knowledge (because I have one of each), four different player combinations known on these ad pieces. I have only seen one other that did not originate with the group that I acquired, and it was a Clarke/Chance version that was auctioned about ten years ago by a general auction house in Maine. In addition to Clarke/Chance, I can therefore confirm the existence of complete versions of the ads depicting the following player pairs: Chase/E. Collins, Kling/Jennings and Mathewson/Walsh. Given that these four known combinations comprise a fairly random grouping of half of the 1912 set, I'd be surprised if such ad pieces were not made up for the other eight cards. But I've never seen or heard of them.
Hope this helps.
Millerhouse