Looking for help identifying these three cards:

[BobC]

Originally Posted by quitcrab

They are either W575 or Koester bread. Koester bread card stock is thicker than W575.

Whichever they are, they are horribly trimmed and most likely would/should only get an "Authentic" grade, at best. Calling these "Poor" is an unbelievable compliment, in my opinion! Both issues are supposed to measure around 2" X 3-1/4", and I doubt any of these three are even close.

Also, if these are not Koester bread cards, they are possibly W575-1 cards, not simply W575 cards. There is a W575-2 version issued in 1922 that is decidedly and easily identifiable as different than W575-1 cards. (Which is actually a good question for another thread as to why these two so different sets of cards, issued in two different years, would be be put under the same W575 designation.)

As an earlier poster pointed out, the W575-1 cards are supposed to be on thinner stock than the Koester Bread cards. Is the the thickness on all three of these cards the same? If so, the May(s) card may help to identify the correct issue all three of these are from.

In the Standard Catalog I have access to here at work (2009 version) the checklists for the 1921 E121 and W575-1 cards both include listings for Mays cards with his name spelled correctly and incorrectly on different versions. For Koester Bread cards, the checklist only includes a listing for a single version of the Mays card with his name spelled correctly. Assuming the Standard Catalog checklists are accurate, the fact that your card is the incorrectly spelled version of Mays would seem to indicate it is a W575-1 card and not a Koester Bread card. And if the thickness of all three cards are exactly the same, I would assume the other two cards are then W575-1s also. That is a huge difference in the value of these cards if that is the case, and not one in your favor!