Where W555's originated

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Posted By: leon

This will be for sale soon in auction....more details coming....Thanks so much to the person allowing this preview to Net54 board members.....I don't want to give anymore details at the moment....thanks again...

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Posted By: barrysloate

If June 1906 is the date these were issued, we are going to have to revise the rookie card list. Wouldn't we have a new Cobb rookie, among others?

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Posted By: leon

I believe that date is relating to the Food Act it's describing on the box, not the box itself, necessarily.....

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Posted By: barrysloate

True, but we don't know, and this box could possibly change our idea of when this set was issued.

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Posted By: Joann

Well here's a dumb-a$$ question. What was the product being sold? What is a baseball snap shot? If they cite FDA, was it a candy product?

Very very cool item. Thanks Leon.

One interesting thing I take from this is that some cards have one hand cut edge, and others have two. Of course, most of the cards are hand cut on all four sides, but knowing how many sides actually had to be hand cut just to detach the card from the body of the piece is still interesting.

Joann

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Posted By: barrysloate

I once had a common that was oversized and revealed some of that black and white finish above the white line. Now I understand it better.

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Posted By: Joann

Dang. I have hated these kinds of visual problems ever since they started showing up on standardized tests on grade school.

I can't mentally fold this thing up into anything at all that makes sense. What the heck was it??

And one more question - Leon do you know if this piece is the entire original object, or is there some that is still cut off? The top edge looks unnatural compared to some of the others.

Joann

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Looking at this box I think it contained candy or gum, but the box was supposed to resemble a box camera which was very popular at that time. I'm guessing the kids would cut out the little photos and pretend they were photos that they took of the ballplayers.

That is one cool item Leon. Can you tell us when and where it will be auctioned?

edited to add: I just printed that out, cut it out and put it together and I think I'm exactly right. It resembles a box camera.

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Posted By: robert a

Unbelieveable.

Thanks Leon for sharing this.

Rob

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Posted By: barrysloate

It is a camera. Can you see the players faces through the little hole?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

You would have to poke holes in the top for light to come in so I don't think it was meant to be a "viewer" type of toy. Just a little camera and 4 snapshots...and probably some gum or candy.

I can't find anything on the internet about a Jay S. Meyer company in philly. Someone who lives in or near there could probably find out more with a trip to the local library or historical society.

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Posted By: robert a

Those are all E97s shown on the box!

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Aren't all of the W555 photos the same as on various E sets?

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Posted By: robert a

The w555s are found with poses from e93, e94, e97, and e98, but this box only has e97s.

Perhaps there were different series' of w555 and those correspond with the 4 e sets above?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Interesting. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story on this box. Who had it? How long has it been known? Where was it found and when?

THIS is what makes this board the best.

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Posted By: Steve f

Who in the heck saves 'trash' for a hundred years?.. Thanks for posting.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

It does appear to me to be some sort of pinhole camera. If you fold up the box and poke a hole in it in the circle, that is.

It would stand to reason in my mind that the box contained film. Perhaps not plausible if they were issued in 1906, though.

But something seems weird about the W555s to me. Up until just a few months ago, I'd never seen one with anything more than just a tiny bit of black edge. Most were cut right down to the picture. I recognized this becuase W555 was a card type I was looking for.

Then, all of a sudden, a few months ago I started seeing them in bunches with four black edges. They seemed to come from out of nowhere. My initial reaction was "Oh, wow, whatever box they were cut from was black." Then my second reaction was "Wow, where did all these W555s come from, and why do they all have four black edges when I'd never seen one like that before?"

Now, here's a full box, from out of nowhere. Nobody ever knew where these cards came from, and now here's a box.

Cool item, though.

-Al

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Posted By: scott brockelman

As you can see, and as I have maintained for years, true full size W555's will have 1-2 rounded corners and full border. I have handled many of these in their original state albeit detached from the entire piece seen here. I have always insisted the cut to the white or even black edges are "trimmed", even though each major grading service has continued to slab them as high grade. If they are not in this original full size as shown above they are trimmed, thus making it very easy to cut them down and send in for a 84 or 86 grade which is just plain wrong.

Scott

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Posted By: barrysloate

Scott- are you saying the full border should go past the first line all the way to the second line to be considered complete?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It looks to me like they were intended to be cut at the white line so they would have a border.

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Posted By: scott brockelman

the top 2 cards would have only needed to be separated on one edge, while the lower pair would have 2 sided needing to be removed from the piece. leaving the round corner and all of the orginal edges. Look at the PSA 8 Waddell in the "handcut" thread. It is nothing more than a cut to size trimmed piece. At least in my eyes as I can plainly see what the original piece looked like.

Edited to add in response to Dan's post above. If you look very carefully at the entire piece above, I believe you will see some factory "fold" marks in the black area, to make folding up the piece a bit easier and this is where the cards were meant to be cut away from the piece. Now obviously the cut away edge might have a little variance according to the abilitys of the cutter, but the remaining sides should be fully intact in order to be graded as an original piece.

Scott

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I disagree that any of the green was intended to be part of the "snap shot". If they were supposed to be snap shots then they were IMO intended to be cut at that white border.

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Posted By: Bruce MacPherson

What a great discovery. It amazes me that 1) a complete box exists and 2) it took 100 years for the mystery to be solved. It still confounds me that these strip type cards can be given numerical grades since they can be cut to sharpen the corners/edges.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think the grading services should continue to review their policies, and it wouldn't hurt for them to take another look at how they evaluate W555's.

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Posted By: leon

It will be auctioned in a live format in the next 2-3 mos....Everyone on the board, and most other collecting circles, will know about it.....

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Posted By: Joann

My guess then is that it will be at the live auction that one of the major houses (Mastro?) is holding at National in early August.

Do I win something for the first best guess??

J

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Posted By: leon

Joann....you don't win anything for the first best guess but it is truly the first best guess.....

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Scott B sure seems to have these W555s figured out, even though the grading folks don't. True size, round corners.... good job, Scott.

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Posted By: barrysloate

While strip cards, for example, were intended to be cut, I'm not sure that's true here. The metamorphic piece was supposed to be folded into a camera and left intact.

But before they were eventually discarded, the baseball players were saved and the balance was tossed.

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Posted By: Derek

Is the space in the middle of the cards a gap from where 2 others were cut out before? Or was this how it came 100%?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Barry, I printed this out and folded it up and the "cards" were meant to be cut out before the box was folded. It just doesn't work any other way.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's interesting for a couple of reasons. First, there are no instructions provided for how to cut and assemble it. Second, if that is the case then the camera and baseball cards have nothing to do with each other; they are really two separate products.

Is it possible you were supposed to hold the baseball cards at one end of the camera and look at them through the little hole, and maybe then have the illusion of the players doing a jig or some such thing? Otherwise, it's a very odd product with unrelated parts.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

In my opinion you were to cut out the player photos and then put together the camera. Kids would pretend that they took "snap shots" of the players with their little camera.

edited to add: This box probably came assembled (since it most likely contained candy) and all the kids had to do was open the end flaps of the box and you could tear off the "snap shots" I wish I had my camera with me right now so I could take pics of the box I made from this - all four "Snap shots" are situated at the end flaps and when the box is opened on either end they can be removed easily.

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Posted By: barrysloate

So you don't think the camera was supposed to be a viewfinder of some kind?

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Posted By: Joe D.

Looking at this piece, I would say:
-First I am not so sure the cutting was ever intended by the product designer. It may have very well been the idea of the consumer and not the manufacturer.
-Second, if I look at the whole piece and want to separate what is the "card" and what is just 'background packaging'.... the white border around the players seems to be the dividing point. The player images have a distinct flat black border around them. After the white border, there is that pattern that can be seen throughout the rest of the piece.

So, I would think if it should be cut - the white line is the cutting line.

jmho.

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Posted By: Steve f

I wonder if there are cut marks where hilited... Also, there appears to be a circular mark on that top middle section (old adhesive stain). The cuts would make more sense in folding this box. I'm probably wrong,but a fun challenge.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Steve, it only works (folds) if there are cut marks where you indicate, and you may be right about adhesive marks since this box has 5 sides so that one side can go under the other for stability.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Dan- here is what I am trying to figure out and you may best be able to answer it since you produced your replica. We know after it's put together it's still not a real camera, because it has no parts (pretty clever observation, don't you think?). So when a kid cut out the baseball cards, folded it properly, and put it together, what exactly did he get? There is hole, and if that hole is punched one should be able to look inside. What would he see? There has to be some logical reason this intricate piece was constructed. So I think it had some use, but I have no clue what that is.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Barry, I don't think it's anthing more than a 5 cent box of candy was meant to be. You open up the box on both ends, remove the candy and the little "snap shots" which are easily torn out, you then close up the box and it's a pretend camera with 4 little "snap shots". It's nothing more than that.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's a gyp. That's very elaborate construction for something that accomplishes nothing.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It may accomplish nothing to you, but to a 5 year old kid it's a camera that he used to take pics of ball players.

I'm not sure how successful this was for the manufacturer, but it's pretty clever in my opinion. Combining two great pastimes of the early 20th century. Baseball and photography.

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Posted By: Joann

1. I think Dan has it exactly right. The player pix are the exact right size for something that would come out of this "camera". Maybe they fit in one end so you could pretend to pull it out of the camera - not to look in to see it, but pull out a snap shot. To a 6 year old, that's probably a great thing.

2. I don't remember the last time I heard anyone use the word gyp! haha. I'd forgotten about that one.

Joann

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I think gypsies everywhere are offended by Barry's offensive comment.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Joann- you won't be surprised when I tell you I looked it up in the dictionary before I posted to make sure I spelled it right!

And I think Joann nailed it down. The cards are sepia toned and are made to look like photographs. So a kid would somehow pretend they were pictures he took himself. Now it finally makes sense!

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Barry, I only tried to convey that to you in about 10 posts....Joann comes along and nails it in one. I should hire her to translate all of my posts.

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Posted By: Joann

<----- Available for translation. Competitive rates. Proper grammar and spelling extra.

Joann

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Posted By: barrysloate

Sorry Dan- sometimes when threads get long my attention span skews a little- Joann's was the most recent so I went with it. Please don't take it personally.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Again: to me, this is clearly a pinhole camera.

-Al

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

That would be one very small pinhole camera.

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Posted By: Chuck Ross

A pinhole camera would have to have a translucent back and would be used to focus on the image of distant objects, not the images of the players on the cards