The recent thread about the Baseball Gum advertising piece has sparked my curiosity and I did not want to hijack it further.
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=301689
My purpose here is to get a more thorough understanding of who produced the 1934 pictures commonly considered R310 Butterfingers. The ad piece in the other thread speaks to 8x10 pictures of your favorite stars available with two pieces of gum for a penny. My questions are focused on other companies who used the same photos, which carry no advertising and are blank-backed.
For starters, does anyone have a checklist of the store-display pictures that show the bright red Butterfinger overprint ad– “Free Baseball Picture with 5c Butterfinger”? I have not seen one. Maybe members here can post their holdings and one can be compiled.
I have seen about 20 of the display cards, and used to own about a half dozen, now down to this one:
A couple of things I find odd.
First, the V94 set is still routinely called Canadian Butterfinger, even though Old Cardboard and other sources found back in 2008 that the set was produced by O-Pee-Chee, which has no association with The Curtiss Candy Company that made Butterfingers. It seems even Burdicks’ early ACC attributed the set to Wm. Paterson, Ltd., which as far as I can tell had no relation to Butterfinger either. Thus, it does not seem that Butterfinger or Curtiss had exclusive rights to use of the pictures.
Second, the pictures are referred to as premiums, but they were available at point of sale and not as part of any redemption. The OC article from 2008 shows a salesmans’ envelope touting “a large 6 ½ x 8 ½" Picture of your favorite Baseball Star and one large stick of gum for 1c... 100 STICKS AND 100 PICTURES IN EACH BOX 50 BIG LEAGUE STARS”. What’s interesting is how this relates to the ad piece from the other thread, which offered a picture and two pieces of gum (size not indicated) for a penny. At first I thought that was too good a deal compared to the Butterfinger offer of a picture plus candy bar for a nickel, but maybe it was the other way around– the candy bar was not such a sweet deal (sorry). From a pricing standpoint these two “gum” offers are very much alike.
Third, note that the O-Pee-Chee and Butterfinger checklists are very similar but not identical in set composition. OPC has 58 cards and Butterfinger 65 per Old Cardboard, but there are several pictures that are only in one set or the other; in fact, 29 Butterfinger subjects do not list in the Canadian set. Strangely, ALL of the players I have seen with Butterfinger red-overprint display are missing from the O-Pee-Chee checklist. That is all but one, Lou Gehrig, and as for him, many sources have doubted his existence in the Canadian set. Could it be that Curtiss/Butterfinger did have exclusivity for some of the players, but that others were fair game to be used by different advertisers? EDITED TO ADD: Maybe not, because I have seen the Frisch pose elsewhere.
Anyway, just wanted to see if there is more out there on the R310 store displays and the V94 set than what my brief search has found. Thanks for looking, and feel free to add info or pics.