[Exhibitman]

In my book I state that the 27 set's count is inaccurate and the 44 set's count is accurate. Mike has raised a good point with regard to the counts, which I thought warranted further discussion. The 27 backs list 19 Scrappers by name and say there are 8 more. I get 7 more, not 8. These break down to the 19 named guys, the two "fist" cards, and five additional appearances of fighters named on the back already as part of in action cards. They are broken down as follows:

Subjects Named On 27 Series Back
1. Gans
2. Nelson
3. Jeffries
4. Corbett
5. Johnson
6. Hart
7. Cole
8. Sharkey
9. Jeannette
10. Burns
11. Attell
12. Ketchell
13. O’Brien
14. Sullivan
15. Marto
16. Langford
17. Rawlin
18. Kaufman
19. Fitzsimmons
Subjects Not Named On 27 Series Back
20. Arm and Clinched Fist
21. Arm and Clinched Fist
Duplicated Subjects (additional appearances noted with parenthetical count)
Johnson (1)/Cole
Johnson (2)/Burns (3)
Kaufman/Sullivan (4)
Marto/Nelson (5)

Note that Cole, Kaufman and Marto only have one appearance in the 27s, on the in action cards with guys who have another card, so they have no parenthetical counts because they are already called out by name on the checklist. Johnson appears on three cards, individually, with Cole and with Burns.

You could call O’Brien’s unnamed partner the 27th scrapper to get the 27 Scrappers count. However, if you count the "partner" listed on the 27 card backs as a Scrapper, then you should do the same on the 44 set, where the 44 backs have 3 "partners" listed, including O'Brien's partner. That gives you 25 Scrappers in the 27 checklist and 44 on the 44 checklist. The only way you get a 27 subject set count is to add the two fist cards to the count, which are not listed on either the 27 or the 44 back but which I've personally seen in red ink and in black ink with 27 backs. Those two are mandatory to reach the set count on the 27 checklist, yet yield 46 subjects if you add them to the 44 checklist of the full issue. If you drop the fist cards, you reduce the 27 count to 25 and the 46 count to 44. If you you omit the three partners from the count and count the fist cards, the counts are 26 and 43, respectively. In short, the numbers don't add up, especially if you treat red back 27s as E80 issues, since the fists are in both red and black back format. FWIW, my view is that there are 21 cards with the 27 backs (red or black) and 11 cards with the 44 backs, and that everything else is probably the result of some clerical error in doing the write-ups, and that the correct labels are E79 (21 cards), E79 red back (21 cards), and E80 (11 cards). If someone appointed me Grand Poobah of collecting I would probably scrap [pun intended] the E79-E80 distinction and make it all one issue.