Mystery Lajoie Card in Legendary Auction

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

From the mailer: "At a trifling expense per set of 200 players you can obtain these photographs with your advertisement on the back of each..."

"The time to place your order with us is now so that these photographs can be printed with your advertisement and delivered in time for you to get the utmost of benefit."

"Remember, your own advertisement will appear on the back of every photograph and all photographs will be of the same quality of clear and lifelike photography as THE SAMPLE HEREWITH ENCLOSED."

So clearly Mendelsohn did the printing of the back ads and delivered them that way. And the "sample herewith enclosed might explain the Lajoie card (and others?) that have something to do with this set. Or, they might be referring to the strip of six "cards" on the mailer as the "sample herewith enclosed." Unless the mailer was intended to be sealed somehow (mine shows no indication of that, but then it was never mailed, either--perhaps coming from the Mendelsohn files themselves?) I don't see how a sample could have been enclosed, so perhaps they are referring to the strip of six on the outside of the mailer.

The sets should perhaps be renamed the M101-4 and M101-5 Mendelsohn's.

Great stuff.

Burdick, in his final edition (1960) of the ACC gave the superset of M101 the name of "Sporting News" and then went on to classify them as 1-9....He said the -4s and -5s were "Premium Cards". Us collectors gave the M101-4/5 series the "The Sporting News" name. They should really be called "Premium Cards" which would be a bit more correct imo.....AND to think, a short 15 yrs ago the backs weren't even collected too much.