N173 & Goodwin Album Certificate Discussion – A New Variation?

[Joe_G.]

Bumping an old thread to introduce a couple new coupons (variations to existing coupons) courtesy an eBay find by Jon Canfield in April of this year. The find numbered 17 Goodwin coupons spanning 7 different designs/variations from 1888 & 1889, two of which were new to me.

First up we have a new color variation of an already known 1888 coupon advertising the Floral Album and World’s Champions Album. The catalogued variant features a teal front and a purple back with the new coupon printed just the opposite. I personally like the new purple front variant as the purple color has a little more pop than teal on the more ornate front design. The eBay find featured 3 of each type.

The other new coupon variation dates to 1889. All catalogued 1889 coupons feature a front side dedicated to N173 cabinets (20 certificates/coupons) and a back side advertising the albums (50 or 75 certificates per album). The new coupon features a new availability date for the “Sports and Games” album (A38 album featuring the N165 cards). The new coupons reads “TO BE READY JUNE 15th – 89” vs later version which states “TO BE READY AUG. 15th – 89”. These dates, in both cases, are actually listed twice on the coupon. The third and final version drops the dates all together.

I’ve opted to rearrange the 1889 coupons a bit . . . type 1 & type 2A (new), 2B, and 2C. Jon’s eBay find included the following:

Type 1: qty 2
Type 2A: qty 2 - new discovery
Type 2B: qty 2
Type 2C: qty 4 - recognized as the most common coupon variant

In studying the evolving dates it seems likely that many of the coupon variations were rather short lived, most of them lasting perhaps no longer than a month. It also suggests that the “Sports and Games” album was supposed to predate the baseball round album (A35) by a month but would ultimately become available one month after the baseball album.

Here is the composite of the coupons I’m aware of followed by a matrix that further connects the coupons to the redemption items.

Many thanks to Jon Canfield for bringing these to our attention !!