It is official: PSA has lost what little cred it had

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

The card in question is a variation of W529. W529 consists of ten cards the images of which were taken from IFC-licensed photographs (W516-520-521 are analogous baseball issues). Burdick in his typically terse description created only one W529 category. Subsequent catalog editors subdivided the W529 group into 3 subclassifications. It has since become apparent to me that the ten images used in W529 were the basis for at least six distinct sets (plus color variations), some or all of which may be the work of the same company.

The first group of three subspecies of W529 all have hand-lettered legends beneath the images and are numbered. These groups can be distinguished based on flip-flopped numbering and image reversal. Burdick used one of these as the basic W529 set, so they are designated W529-1, for lack of any better place to start:

1.Johnny Dundee
2.Geo. Carpentier
3.Mike O’Dowd
4.Joe Beckett
5.Lou [sic] Tendler
6.Fred Fulton
7.Benny Leonard
8.Jack Britton
9.Jack Dempsey
10.Johnny Kilbane

The next subgroup (W529-2) has the same numbering but flips the images.

The final subgroup of these cards (W529-3) flips both the images and the numbering (e.g., #1 Dundee is #10 and is a reversed image, #2 is #9, etc.). Since all cards bear the IFC copyright, one way to tell the difference between series 1 and 2 if you don't know the sequence is to see if the IFC copyright and logo is reversed.

The next two subspecies of W529 were cards I identified as a different set that seemed to be based on W529 but had a typed legend below the images. I have now found enough of these cards to confirm that they match the sequence of W529 and should be classified as a W529 sub-set. They look like what is now W516-2-1 in the 2005 SCD. Once again, these cards can be found with the images flipped and I have again chosen to designate the issue with the IFC copyright facing the right way as the first, W529-4. The reversed series is W529-5.

The last subspecies of W529 is what we are dealing with here. This group has crude illustrations drawn from the IFC images. The fighter’s name is inside the image box rather than below the image and the cards are unnumbered. I have not seen reversed images of these cards. I am designating these as W529-6 in the 3rd edition of my boxing card book.

I wish this was the end of the W529 saga, but there is the pesky issue of color and shade variations to consider. I have seen multiple different colors of each issue. I can confirm that W529-4 and W529-5 are printed with blue legends (typical) and with black legends. I have also seen W529 cards of Tendler in blue background and red background, and very different shades of green backgrounds for Fulton. The set here has two major variations, one with pastel colors (as the card PSA misidentified does) and one with sharp primary colors.