strip cards aren't cheap anymore

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The Heilmann I got was part of a complete sheet that had sufficient damage that I decided not to keep it intact, as it would have made a rotten display piece. For those of you who haven't seen a sheet, it is about the size of notebook paper. The first four rows (20 cards) are playing "cards" with the bottom row having 5 miscellaneous format images. The ballplayer and two of the boxers were in the bottom row, which took a real beating despite having a large white border around the perimeter of the 25 cards. Someone had previously removed a part of the top and right borders and there was a big chunk missing from the bottom row. Luckily for me, the two best cards on the sheet (Heilmann and Benny Leonard) were in great shape. The other two boxers (Schwartz and Stribling) unfortunately were shredded, as was the Lon Chaney on the bottom row. Others of note on the sheet were Oswald the Rabbit (Walt Disney's first "star" character), Gary Cooper (had a print line thru it), Charlie Chaplin (also in nice shape), Monte Blue (silent movie cowboy). The rest of the cards were silent film stars of little note.

Cutting down the sheet was really tough. Unlike other sets, the W565 was comprised of 25 cards that were obviously laid out and photographed (like the N172 small image variations) then printed. You can see the clear tape lines on some of the card images. It meant that there wasn't a single straight cut line on the whole sheet that spanned more than 2 cards and the black borders between the cards were various widths and shapes. I had to go after the valuable cards without regard to the others and hope I could get the others out clean afterwards.