1916 Everybody's origins uncovered-- thanks Jason!

[MMarvelli]

Originally Posted by Leon

The apostrophes' are all over the place on the way they were formed so I don't count them as variations.

While I agree that the font density and the 'E' are the main indicators of the Everybody's variation, I enjoy the minutia of the apostrophes. Sadly, I think apostrophes and similar punctuation marks do not get their just due in a world dominated by letters and numerals. Punctuation marks should unite and reverse this situation.

Knowing that they were distributed in groups of twenty is a great addition to the knowledge base on this. Seems strange that they might have been printed in that small of a grouping each week. However if they weren’t sure how the interest would follow over the weeks it makes sense that they printed often and only as many as they thought necessary. That could explain why there might be as many as 10 different apostrophe types.

[nolemmings]

Thanks guys. Oddly enough, I cannot seem to find an ad announcing the beginning of the promotion, even though Everybody's had plenty of half-page and full page ads in the days preceding the first giveaway.

MarkMac, almost all of the documented cards are from series 2, i.e., card #s 21-40. Therefore the various backs were all printed within the same series. My working theory is more in line with the lazy typesetter. The many examples that were auctioned together some few years ago were almost all from series 2, which led me to suspect that Everybody's was distributed in groups of 20 like Sporting News and others. Incidentally and curiously, I have never seen one player with two or more different backs.

MarkMarv, I tend to agree with Leon on this-- the "E's" are the giveaway. Your scans actually show two type 1's-- the most prevalent type- with an inking issue on one apostrophe, IMO. There should be only one "thick" lettered variation. I will post the four types separately. I have tracked 58 of the cards and the only ones with noticeable differences in apostrophe within type 1 are found on cards of Cheney and Cravath, and these are minor. I believe there are likely inking anomalies rather than typesetting differences. True there are other differences in apostrophe among the other types, and I use one as an identifier, but the location of the arms and bars on the letter "E" and their serifs are the main points of difference, or should I say, if you only had one card and you had to pin it down, I would rather focus on the E than the '.

[nolemmings]

From my notes:

[paul]

All very interesting. It sounds like it is very possible that the full set of 200 was never distributed, and perhaps never even printed.

[brianp-beme]

Thanks Todd for the detective work.

Does anyone have or know of an Everybody's of Eddie Collins, which is the only player mentioned in the ad?

Brian

[nolemmings]

Brian, there are four known examples of Eddie Collins. Strangely, despite multiples of all second series cards, there is only one confirmed Cobb and none of Max Carey.

Paul, I believe the entire set was distributed, as I have seen ads for five or six of the series, not counting the last one, and Zach Wheat exists from the last series. Strange that they didn't survive. I wonder if some brothers each were given a set of the second series and that explains why the mini-finds were all of the same series--they came from the same household--as there seems little reason for one kid to want 2-5 of the same card.

[sb1]

It appears the store went out of business in February of 1917. Perhaps they had extras of some laying around when they liquidated everything.