Generic cards featuring real players

[brianp-beme]

The Walter Johnson E91 is from the E91C set, which was the third E91 set that was issued in 1911. The image on the Johnson card was originally published in the E91A series in 1908 as Rube Waddell, and the artist used Waddell's facial characteristics in producing the card. Here a couple of Rube's other cards that to me are pretty conclusive that this is actually Rube's face...check out the long nose and flaring nostrils and mouth areas, the distinctive upper lip, the odd stare, the shape and positioning of his ears, even the center part in his hair. In fact I am convinced they used the photo seen in the Colgan Chip issue to create the facial portion of the E91A Waddell card.

I think the producers choose the "Rube" design for Walter for the E91C issue because there are certain resemblances between their faces, but otherwise I consider the E91C of Johnson to be a Waddell imposter.

Brian