R317 Uncle Jacks color subset- complete..finally

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Posted By: leon

A few days ago I got this message from one of the long time hobby collectors, that all old timers would know, concerning the R317's. He has asked to stay anonymous but said he reads the board and appreciates what we do...I asked if I could post this information and he said "no problem"...



"Thanks for posting your green Hack Wilson Uncle Jack. I had never seen one and, quite frankly doubted the green ones were authentic, if they existed at all.
I am a longtime collector who visits your fascinating forum occasionally under the cover of darkness. Over the years I have handled many Uncle Jacks, extracting my set from the Springfield, Mass., "find" in the 70s and susequently noticing any others that popped up in the New England region since then. The Uncle Jacks in that find of 100+ unopened packs were all blue, red or purple, and no player appeared in more than two colors. While I don't have two complete sets, I compared notes with the other two collectors who wound up with most of the find and none of us had any green ones, nor players in three different color schemes.
Some of the handful of Uncle Jacks I've seen that definitely came out of vintage collections are printed on a slightly different stock cardboard and have white backs like your Wilson, while the "find" contained only gray-back cards, usually bearing a slight stain from the double sticks of gum included. Since the gray-back cards have crisper images than the white-back Uncle Jacks I've seen, I've wondered whether the white backs were a second printing, not reprints, however.
Anyway, it would be interesting to determine whether any Uncle Jacks appear in all four color schemes.
By the way, you've probably noticed that the photos used for the Uncle Jacks were also the source for many R306s and R337s, likely originating with Baseball Magazine.
Keep up the good work on Network54."