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Posted By: boxingcardman

The initial sets of these cards are often found with a PC back that would have been destroyed had the card been cut up. Also, many are found with corner coupons on the backs, which makes no sense in a strip card arrangement. All of the ads I've seen for 4 on 1 exhibits do not suggest cutting up the cards. I have a 1955 ESCO catalog that has a 4 on 1 cowboy set in it and nothing there suggests cutting them up. Finally, it appears to a certainty that ESCO's art for some of its cards was used to create W517 and W517 minis* and also at least two sets of nonsport strip cards based on ESCO non-sports issues of the day. Doesn't make much sense to create a strip product if the main product was intended as a strip product, too. The most likely explanation of the 4 on 1 idea is that it let ESCO reuse images it already had in stock from prior sets to make new products on the cheap during the Depression.


* See my exhibit page on my web site for examples of original art and the various related ESCO and strip issues.

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