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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

Todd and I deal with the Ruth rookie question a little bit in our article, which is about ready to submit to Lyman. I can tell you that there's ironclad evidence that M101-5 was issued before M101-4 (in early 1916, before the E135s), so M101-5 would be the rookie.

But since Ruth's number in M101-5 and M101-4 is the same, with many copies, especially blanks, it's extremely difficult to say which set they come from. Which has led to some controversy (although personally I'd be happy with either one )