Ok, type collectors, wow me with your Texas Tommy E224s

[the 'stache]

Leon, do you or any of the other E224 owners have an explanation or educated guess as to why a few of the cards in the set have no backgrounds? Typically, when I've seen cards with large areas "airbrushed out", so to speak, it's been because a player depicted did not authorize the use of their likeness in that particular product. Or, another company held exclusive rights to the player.

Here's the Shoeless Joe Jackson type-1 (image from Beckett):



According to the article in Old Cardboard (issue #7), only Jackson, Jack Coombs and Tris Speaker exhibit this anomaly from the fifty-one known issued cards in the type-1 set. In fifteen card type-2 set, Walter Johnson, Rube Marquard and Honus Wagner (and possibly Connie Mack--no picture of the card was available for the publication, and I cannot find one on Google) exhibit this same lack of a background.

If it were for artistic reasons, one would almost certainly expect to see more than three out of over fifty examples depicted in this manner.

[T206Collector]

The coolest thing about that Hooper is the autograph!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

The coolest thing about that Hooper is the autograph!

Thanks T206....and as you know it has a cert with it, not that that matters a lot. I got it as a type card I needed. The auto is a plus.

And Bill, no idea on the backgrounds. My friend John Esch's article on them is the most comprehensive article I am aware of, though VCBC probably had one or two also. The answer might be in one of those places or it might be blowin' in the wind .