Posted By:
Al C.risafulliKing:
The 1931 W502s, if I recall, are numbered differently and have some different players from the 1928s.
I pulled those two 1931s right off my shelf and looked at the backs; admittedly it was late and it's possible I pulled the wrong ones off the shelf, but I don't believe I did. Let me rephrase: if I did that, I'm just a little bit higher on the evolutionary scale than a monkey.
I do believe that the blank-backed W502s are actually not W502s, but A) I have absolutely no evidence to back this up other than the fact that blank backs are more plentiful than printed backs and, in the context of the game, blank backs make no sense, and B) I believe I'm the only person in the hobby that thinks this. At the same time, I've never seen a W502 that says "OUT" on it, and there are outs in baseball, so it's possible that the blank-backed ones are just supposed to be outs. Unfortunately, until someone unearths some companion piece that describes the rules of the game, the issuer of these cards and the meaning of the game are lost to history - one reason I stopped collecting the set.
-Al