Henry Johnson Confectioner Backs

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Posted By: Rhys

Is anyone here aware of different variations of the Henry Johnson Candy backs for the W575-1 cards, or is there only belived to be the one version of the back as printed on page 198 in the 2006 SCD catalog?

Thanks in advance

Rhys Yeakley

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Posted By: leon

I have seen several dozen and only seen one type......best regards

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Posted By: Matt Goebel

I am curious if there is a premium for these backs? I saw a Cobb listed on Ebay a while ago and the seller was claiming that there should be a premium for rarity. Is this true?

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Posted By: Rhys

Thanks Leon, that is what I already strongly suspected but was not positive. I just aquired a small group of these and had seen or owned about 30 in the last 15 years, all with the same purple type, until today. This new version is part of a fresh to the hobby find and is a Different type set, different color, different slogan, different address, and different phone number. By looking up these different addresses in a census it should help to solidify the years these overprints were produced but either way, the new version is one of the rarest cards I have ever owned I am sure.

As far as premiums go, they are Rare. Until the last couple of years I had only seen about 10, and my guess is that there are still only a handful of each particular player known within the hobby. The reason they do not sell for more is because the back is a stamp and not a pre-printed advertisement like Holsum Bread or Whitmor Candy.

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Posted By: Jim Manos

I sold 3 last week on ebay that were in a black color print that are different than the two you posted. The ones I had the font was much closer together than the on the left in Rhys scan. Also, I may add that they each had a diamond punch like they were cancelled of some sort??? Hope this helps.

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

I have seen some with slightly different typeset and a more violet colored tint

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Posted By: William Heitman

I really do not relish being a negative voice with regard to anything having to do with baseball card collecting, but sometimes collectors need a check on reality. Strip cards with stamps on their backs? In the mid '70's, these things started popping up and, in a few years, they were all traced back to a single source. That guy had a bunch of stamps made up and started stamping the backs of strip cards. And, yes, Henry Johnson's were among these stamped cards. Discussion of these stamped back cards is not vintage talk. The cards may date way back, but the stamps do not.

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Posted By: fkw

The Henry A. Johnson cards are not W575-1 cards, they are blank backed E121 cards. If someone (recently) stamped the back of blank back E121's, where did they find this large hoard of them??? Blank back E121 cards are very scarce. And why did they damage many of them with star punch holes and heavy creases after stamping them? They didnt, the cards are authentic and stamped in the 1920s. I have owned about 15 of them, and most all are beatup. They are not W575-1 cards, the pitcure and card stock is different. W575-1 cards are grainy and the stock is different especially the back smoothness.


W575-1, E-Unc. H.A.Johnson, E121


Frank

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Sorry Bill,
I, along with many collectors have found vintage groups of these cards, as have many collectors from California like Macrae.

-Rhett

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Posted By: prewarsports

Some of the Henry Johnsons I owned several years had extra paper attached to the backs which I removed. The glue was 1920's water soluable paste and the paper attached was 1920's newprint. Someone would have had to do an awful lot of faking of period glues and years and years of nature taking its course on the the cards to stain them where the glue was in order to do that. I still have a few with the old glue on them if any of the skeptics want to see them.

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

Rhys, Rhett & others, While it is true that I have found quite a few of the (otherwise) blank back E-121's stamped 'Henry Johnson' mixed in with 'outside the hobby' finds of 1920's cards native to Northern California, there is ONLY ONE FONT of Henry Johnson cards that I have ever been comfortable recognizing as coming from the 1920's. The top illustration in this post is the one with the purple / blue rubberstamp. That being said, there are also a very few examples which are found with a SPECIFIC PRODUCT rubber stamped on the backs. I will not name the product at this time, but it is known by a few advanced collectors and is linked to Henry Johnson in Alameda, California. Don McPherson shared it with me and others back in the 70's. Bill Heitman's post above should be taken serious as well. He was around back in the day when many otherwise blank back (original) cards had 'advertising' stamped on them, 50-60 years after the fact. A third element, which no poster has yet commented on, is the existance of the notorious "Janet Hellein" cards from 1972. There were a number of sets affected by this fraud, one of the earliest frauds in hobby history. The sets include E-121/E-135 style cards, Old Judges and Home Run Kisses, amongst others. The cards were created in the 70's using an earlier stock of paper and some were rubber stamped with "Henry Johnson" in a different font on the backs. Several advanced collectors (of the time) were victims of this fraud. It is more than safe to assume that many other examples of these "bad" cards were either sandbagged, marketed elsewhere to the unsuspecting or otherwise migrated into advanced collections over the next three decades. As a surfer of Ebay, I see these OUTRIGHT COUNTERFEITS being offered about twice a year (That I catch). It is important to remember that these "cards" are now over thirty years old and are starting to exhibit the normal aging and patination that comes natural. That said, it is always possible that new sets or new discoveries, which are legitimate can always happen. Just be aware that if you overextend your confidence on a specific product, that is later proven otherwise, it is your judgement, reputation and integrity that is at stake.

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Posted By: Rhys

Mark

I never doubted the ones I have with the purple stamps since the Real Henry Johnson I have used to compare them to for years I bought from your lists. As for the other green stamp, I have no reason to doubt it based on the collection it came from being glued to a vintage scrapbook and how it surfaced, but I will submit it for grading to be safe. However, this is WHY I posed the question on the forum is because I had never seen that particular stamp before and only ever seen the purple ones.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Mark, I don't believe any one of us was trying to single Bill out or disregard what he was saying about there being a person in the past forging back stamps. From his post it appeared he was implying that ALL Henry Johnsons were not meaningful in the hobby- saying that strip cards with stamps were meaningless. I like many people have found Henry Johnsons in collections dating back to before the 1960's to 1970's, thus we were simply stating that Henry Johnsons were a legitimate back to be found.

Up to this point I had only ever seen the one back stamp, I had never seen any with the stamp shown by Rhys. To end I respect Bill Heitman and everything he has done for the hobby, I just don't agree that to speak of these cards is not vintage talk. I personally see no difference between Henry Johnsons and the super-coveted OLD PUT cards.
-Rhett