Redeemed E106s ?

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Posted By: Zach Rice

I have recently begun to collect cards from the 1915 E106 set. I am intrigued by their rarity, player selection, and the year of production which makes the set depict three different leagues. Before concentrating on the set, I had noticed multiple examples both belonging to board members and on eBay that featured a series of hole punches in them. These were not just normal hole punches but almost like little stars. The one single player I can recall seeing this on was an Eddie Collins and of course the card which is pictured below, my Tris Spealer. I'd love to hear other's thoughts on these mystery hole punches in these cards. Possibly some sort of a redemption or maybe a kid bored on a rainy day ? Thanks for any input.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey Zach,

There was an early thread on E106...

http://www.network54.com/Forum/153652/thread/1163813983/last-1164213811/E106%27s+-+Rare+or+Unpopular-

On 11-20 I posted scans of my 4, one has the little x holes. Someone else had a card or two with the holes, but they've taken their images down.

I think you're correct, but don't know anything about it for certain.

Frank W.

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Posted By: Paul

This is an interesting theory. But the one thing that strikes me as wrong is that a company would pick such a severe cancellation technique. Just one of the punch holes in Speaker takes out his heart and lungs. Why would the company want to ruin the appeal of the card that badly? On the other hand, the George C. Miller company cut off the bottom third of the card, so maybe they just felt that the kids weren't that picky.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Well I don't think it was the caramel company that did the punching.


I think it was some merchant, somewhere. A store owner who was doing some sort of promotion on his own. I'm not aware of any sort of mail in thing going on with these cards.

A senior collector told me that back in the 50s he wrote Red Man about getting the Red Man Tobacco cards. They mailed him a full set. Really nice cards, in great shape. But Red Man had cut those coupons off before mailing them to him. Still, a full set for the cost of a letter, a good deal. Almost as good as mailing Cracker Jack a 25 cents to get that complete set of 176 back in 1915. Sometimes, when I look at an old silver dollar a relative gave me, a relative who'd have been in his late teens in 1915, wouldn't it have been nice if he'd converted that silver dollar to 4 sets of 1915 Cracker Jack cards, and then given me that...

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Posted By: robert a

Interesting topic Zach.

Maybe the first kid to complete the set and bring the cards back to the retailer got a buck (like the m131 backs say).

In order to make sure the kid didn't keep cashing in they punched em.

Like Frank stated though, why so many times?

Thanks for creating a thread that has nothing to do with PSA or value!

Rob

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Posted By: Zach Rice

I agree with you, Frank. From the number of hole-punched examples out there, it does seem like some sort of promotion and not something done by a bored kid.

I also believe that the shape of the punched hole has a lot to do with proving that these holes were indeed a result of some sort of promotion. The first hand held hole puncher was patented in 1885, the first "standard" hole punch and hole punch that was readily available for sale was introduced in 1901. Now, there are plenty of hole punchers out there today that cut different shapes, but I find it unlikely that these would have been around and available to kids in 1915 and even if they were around, why would a kid willingly take out chunks of his baseball cards ? Many work places use out of the ordinary hole punchers to stamp items of promotion so the stamps can not be duplicated. I believe that to be the case for these E106s. I know at the pet store which I work at, our stamps for "frequent buyer cards" are in the shapes of little dog heads.

There is the dilemma to why some have more punches in them than others. Could it have been just a sour merchant on a bad day who didn't like kids ? Is it possible that the person that stamped Frank's Schaefer was a different person than who stamped my Tris Speaker ?



Just throwing some ideas out there....

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Posted By: martindl

Zach,
Not related to what you're seeking, but you ask why some kid would want to punch out holes in his cards. I have a few E91's that I got from the original owner. They have a dimaond punch through them and I ask him why this would be. He told me it was so he could tell which were his and which were his brothers. He double punched his favorite two cards - Johnson & Wagner.

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Posted By: scott brockelman

Seems to me if the kid got it and redeemed it that season, the card would be in reasonably nice shape, this card is beat and IF a redeemer punched it, why multiple punches or so accurately punched. I believe it was a kid active with a hole punch could have 1-2 years later or 10-20

Scott

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Zach, is there something on the back of the card, like an overstamp or something that would identify a regional retailer of candies or something?

I have a bunch of E121s with the Henry Johnson stamp on the back. A number of them have multiple star-shaped hole punches in them. Some disagree with me, but I think it's a cancellation as well - it would be too weird for them to have all come from some kid's collection in California in 1922, and then all land in my collection today.

Plus, you've got to figure: why would a kid have a hole puncher that created a shape of anything other than a circle? Hole punchers are functional items, not decorative ones. You punch a hole in something so you can put it in a binder, or a book of some kind. The only reason I can think of why you'd want a funky-shaped hole puncher would be to differentiate it from more traditional hole punches, for the purposes of redeeming some sort of coupons or some retail promotion or something.

I think you're on the right track.

-Al

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

While I can't say definitively on this particular E-106, I can state that many cards (including Zeenuts) have been found in original collections which contain similar types of "redemption marks". In more than a handfull of collections that I have bought over the last 35 years, I have encountered cards with unique markings on them, and have been fortunate to talk to the original buyer, who in most cases hadn't done any "collecting" since the cards were first pulled from the candy boxes decades earlier. Independantly, the information they shared with me suggests that many "mom & pop" stores offered a premium above and beyond what the manufacturer offered. A common trait is that these stores seemed to be in densely populated parts of cities , in the case of Zeenuts, primarily Oakland and San Francisco, where households each contained several children. (Yes I asked where they lived, including the street intersections !) Essentially, what I have felt, is that a competition for young customers was waged amongst store owners. In the 1910's and 1920's, a nickel or dime product had a lot more clout than it does today. In the case of Zeenuts (& related Collins issued 5 cent products that contained the cards), which were packaged 100 boxes of candy to a case, store owners in the right neighborhoods could sell dozens of cases per week. Some original collectors remembered their "bonus" premium was a free box of candy with every 50 cards they brought back. The cards found have been defaced with punch holes (mostly), or marked on the reverse in some fashion. While some modern collectors will designate such cards as "Poor" condition, others will understand this trait & decide whether or not to include such an item in their collection. In today's economy, a comparable offer might be one of the neighborhood gas stations offering $50 rebate off every 100 gallons of gas purchased at their station. I'd probably drive an extra mile to be a part of that offer too !

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

I have mentioned this before, but I have about 100 cancelled 1933 Goudeys that my step grandfather gave to me in the early 50's. They are all neatly cancelled by punching the copyright circle. The cards were given back to the customers, but many did not want them and left them and my grandfather saved them. He may have told me what the promotion was but I don't remember one way or another. I have seen others from time to time.