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Posted By: Jerry Spillman

As for the Saturday SLC card group auction I thought it interesting enough to submit an article on that subject for publication. All of the SLC cards in that auction are from the 1902 and early 1903 period. I cancelled the article on the professional grading errors and put the article on the 19th century baseball card-listing hoax on hold.

Regarding the SLC cards: All the dress clothes Mathewsons I’ve seen were miss-spelled Matthewson. The early uniform Mathewson card was also miss-spelled in the same way. However in later editions of the uniform version the spelling was corrected. The dress clothes card was never issued again.

The crossed bats embossed white ink SLC format was started in 1904 and continued until the end of printing of these cards in the spring of 1912.

John "Buck" Freeman's first SLC card is not only an unusual pose but also one of the very few players not to wear dress clothes for the 1902 Carl Horner photographing sessions. On his second card later in 1903 he wore the typical Boston lace-top uniform in a regular portrait pose. Also there were two other changes on the later card. One was “outfielder” was changed to “right fielder” the other just John Freeman is printed. The "Buck" was eliminated.

In a similar case the first SLC card for Waddell was the 1902 George Edward “Rube” Waddell pitcher for Philadelphia AL. His second card in 1908 as pitcher for St. Louis AL card “Rube” was omitted. This was likely done at the request of Mr. Waddell. According to a teammate Mr. Waddell disliked that nickname and preferred to be called Eddie.