1911 Baseball Snapshots Strip Card Ad Find

[jeffshep]

Just uncovered this ad from a February 1911 trade magazine. I'm not familiar with the issue so I'll leave it up to you Net54'ers to decipher. Enjoy!

[Zach Wheat]

Neat. I am not familiar with this set at all. They almost look like cropped portions of the images of other T and E sets.

Z Wheat

Nice add. Look like w555's.

http://www.oldcardboard.com/w/w555/w...?cardsetID=831

[WillowGrove]

I don't collect 555's but that is a really great ad. Thanks for posting.

[familytoad]

If only Grampa was a jobber.
If only Grampa was a jobber who was also a poor salesman.
If only Grampa was a jobber , poor salesman and a hoarder.
If only Grampa was a jobber, poor salesman, hoarder and left me the only key to his attic.

Of course, doing a little math here, It would have had to be my Great-Grampa who was the failed jobber from the descriptions above.

I'm a bit confused on how the small box can have 4 pictures each, looking at the photos in the ad. Still, if anyone has a actual scan of one of these boxes, from their collection...it would be cool to see! Very cool indeed!

[paul]

So it looks like W555s were available on two different kinds of boxes. I guess the big box in the ad held the little boxes.

[birdman42]

Hm. Interesting that the ad promises 250 different pictures. OC says that there are "69+" in the set. I can't imagine that less than a third of the set has been discovered yet after all these years, so my conclusion is that Meyer never got all the way through their planned run.

There's been plenty of speculation about the source of these images, mostly centered around E93/4/7/8; does the plan of a larger set change anyone's mind?

Brian, here's a link to a thread with a pic of a repro box. http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=W555
And this thread discusses some of the ins and outs of the set. http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=W555

Bill

[h2oya311]

Is this a new discovery that the W555 were issued through 1911? I know most TPGs have modified the date they use for this issue from 1907 to 1910. It looks like 1911 (or before) may be the new date.

I know the fairly recent discovery (and sale) of a complete box was the first known example. Previously, people did not know how the W555 were issued. This ad is significant in the dating of the issue to at least 1911.

Thanks for sharing!! Derek

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by birdman42

Hm. Interesting that the ad promises 250 different pictures. OC says that there are "69+" in the set. I can't imagine that less than a third of the set has been discovered yet after all these years, so my conclusion is that Meyer never got all the way through their planned run.

Bill, it actually says that there are 250 pictures in the assortment that the jobber was to receive, not that there are 250 subjects in the set.

The ad is a great research find; thanks for sharing it.

The ad also says there are 72 small boxes in each container and 48 containers in a case. The containers sound like the equivalent of modern card wax boxes. I wonder if the containers actually had cards printed on them or if the images on the containers were different in size or other ways from the actual box cards?