Some rare and expensive bakery goodies......

[bn2cardz]

I find the Herp conversation humorous.

Occam's Razor states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

Using Occam's Razor here is what we are left with.

Facts: A gentleman has them for sale and when asked he states they are not real.

Brian's assumptions:
1)They guy knew what he had
2)The guy had a printer
3)The guy had access to vintage paper
4)the guy had access to vintage ink
5)the guy only printed 1 or 2 sets to sell at a single show
6) this guy knew about other images to use that weren't known to the rest of the hobby until future discoveries in other sets

The counter assumptions:
1) The guy didn't know that the cards were real and thought they were fake

Using Occam's Razor it is easy to go with the fact the cards are real.

[packs]

Just wondering about the Allegheny cards. Has there ever been a patent found for the game? I'm wondering what dates them to the period other than insight from hobby veterans. I know the cards have the registered date printed on them, but is there evidence that supports the fact that the game was registered in 1904?

[the-illini]

maybe I missed this, but a person that you know well enough to unequivocally vouch for his honesty has a bunch of interesting cards and says "they are not real" and you didn't bother to ask why?

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by the-illini

maybe I missed this, but a person that you know well enough to unequivocally vouch for his honesty has a bunch of interesting cards and says "they are not real" and you didn't bother to ask why?

Agreed!

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by the-illini

maybe I missed this, but a person that you know well enough to unequivocally vouch for his honesty has a bunch of interesting cards and says "they are not real" and you didn't bother to ask why?

One, the guy was definitive, direct and honest in his response.

Two, the cards, for the most part, had the prices written on the back.

Three, I had an issue with the frame of the advertisement on the back which I thought was retro in look.

Add these together and I would not ask why.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

One, the guy was definitive, direct and honest in his response.

Two, the cards, for the most part, had the prices written on the back.

Three, I had an issue with the frame of the advertisement on the back which I thought was retro in look.

Add these together and I would not ask why.

So you're going to take the word of this guy who you really do not know because he seemed honest and forthright to you over Rhett, Leon and other people who have these cards in hand and have decades of experience with vintage cards???

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

So you're going to take the word of this guy who you really do not know because he seemed honest and forthright to you over Rhett, Leon and other people who have these cards in hand and have decades of experience with vintage cards???

With all due respect to Rhett, Leon and others, yes.

Why?

He was the point of origin.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

With all due respect to Rhett, Leon and others, yes.

Why?

He was the point of origin.

You know this how? You stated more than once you never asked about the origins of them. There seems to be a real cognitive disconnect here that leads me to believe you're putting us on.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

With all due respect to Rhett, Leon and others, yes.

Why?

He was the point of origin.

This seller could have stumbled across the hoard, found absolutely no hobby references concerning them, and concluded, quite inaccurately, that they were not real.

I see this as the most plausible answer since we have the various knowledgeable collectors who have actually looked at the cards and determined them to be genuine.

Brian (not the original poster, but instead poster child)

[ctownboy]

Point of origin?

Does that mean he was the guy who printed them or he was the guy who sold the original lot?

Again, two different scenarios with the answer to each giving a different meaning to the cards. If he was the point of origin means he printed the cards then, yes, they are "not real". If point of origin means he was the seller of the lot then this means the cards very well could be authentic and "not real" means the guy didn't know what he owned.

In 1994, I bought my Star Player Candy cards from an ephemera dealer at a paper show in Louisville, KY. He wrote his asking price on the back of each card in pencil. He told me the cards were originally collected by his Father who had lived in central Michigan as a child. The dealer didn't know who produced the cards (I didn't either. It took me a half an hour looking through the big SCD price guide in my car to find the cards and know they were real).

Now, what if this dealer did NOT know where the cards came from and he had access to a price guide and knew exactly what the cards were. What if he priced 14 of them as real and priced the Buddy Myer as fake and the ONLY reason he did this was because the Myer wasn't listed in the price guide?

I bought all of the cards for what the dealer was asking and only later, when I had time to look through all of them, did I find out that the Myer was an uncatalogued card. Did I think the Myer card was fake because it was unlisted? No. That was because it looked the same as the other 14 cards and was on the same paper.

So, unless the guy you bought these cards from specifically said he or someone he knew printed these cards and that they were blatant fakes, I find it hard to believe, with all of the other evidence presented, that these cards are fake.

David

PS. I don't own any of these Herps, I have never owned any of these Herps and I have never even held one of these cards in my hand. I DO remember when they were on eBay and the conversation about them on the old board when they were listed.

[glchen]

Is it possible that the original owner had genuine blank backed W575-1's and put a fake Herp stamp on back of the cards? Therefore, when he stated that the cards were not real, he meant that it wasn't real b/c the Herp back wasn't genuine? (Complete conjecture)

[the-illini]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

One, the guy was definitive, direct and honest in his response.

Two, the cards, for the most part, had the prices written on the back.

Three, I had an issue with the frame of the advertisement on the back which I thought was retro in look.

Add these together and I would not ask why.

Number 1 is an opinion.

Number 2 - we all have seen a lot of cards that are 100% real that had a collectors sale price on the back

Number 3 is an opinion

Sorry, these three reasons don't support the absolute statement you are making. I have no stake in proving these cards to be authentic, but you haven't offered any real proof other than your opinion.

[rhettyeakley]

You're killin' me Brian! I consider you a hobby friend but your stance on these cards is completely baffling to me! I just don't think there is anything that will convince you that the guy was mistaken and that these are original. You have no evidence that they are fake other than the guys word which for some reason is enough for you even though ALL evidence points to him having been wrong! I like you so I don't want to beat a dead horse but I hope someday you will actually hold one of these cards and look at it objectively for what it is and you will come to the same conclusion as the rest of us...

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

You're killin' me Brian! I consider you a hobby friend but your stance on these cards is completely baffling to me! I just don't think there is anything that will convince you that the guy was mistaken and that these are original. You have no evidence that they are fake other than the guys word which for some reason is enough for you even though ALL evidence points to him having been wrong! I like you so I don't want to beat a dead horse but I hope someday you will actually hold one of these cards and look at it objectively for what it is and you will come to the same conclusion as the rest of us...

+1

[nolemmings]

Brian, you do not know him to be the point of origin, and apparently he did not even claim to be the point of origin. He simply said they are fake. He even could have bought them earlier in the day from another dealer from all we've been shown.

I believe the Herpolsheimer story was posted before, but I’ll give it another go. 1920 was the 50 year anniversary of the patriarch William Herpolsheimer’s involvement in the dry goods business, so it might have been a good idea to revive the baseball card idea from a few years prior. Unfortunately, the old man died in February, 1920. His son then died in April. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the tumult caused by these deaths, or simply the business decisions of those who took over led Herpolsheimer to scrap the whole idea such that a prototype set was never completed or was never distributed. That would explain why no others have surfaced.

I hope our researcher sleuths with access to old newspapers will look into the Grand Rapids papers of the time. These Herpolsheimers make reference to the Boys Fashion Shop being on the Second Floor of the store– a fact missing from the 1916 m101-4/5 Herps. If it turns out that is the correct floor than it is even more likely that these are real, unless the creator of the fakes also went to the trouble of great research some 15+ years ago (with fewer internet resources) to add an esoteric and largely irrelevant fact. Even without this info, though, I simply cannot believe these are fake. The paper is spot on. The photography too, and fakes of that era are usually either muddy or washed out. The gloss matches–very hard to do. And of course the backs look like they were printed by the same company as the Holsums and the Shotwells, with similar patterns, fonts and spacing. Finally and as pointed out, the grouping contained players not then known to even exist in the Holsum or E121 sets. Just way too much here to by rebutted by a simple declaration otherwise.

[chernieto]

But we can all agree the prices for those listings on Ebay are way too high whether the cards are real or not?

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

You're killin' me Brian! I consider you a hobby friend but your stance on these cards is completely baffling to me! I just don't think there is anything that will convince you that the guy was mistaken and that these are original. You have no evidence that they are fake other than the guys word which for some reason is enough for you even though ALL evidence points to him having been wrong! I like you so I don't want to beat a dead horse but I hope someday you will actually hold one of these cards and look at it objectively for what it is and you will come to the same conclusion as the rest of us...

LOL. I don't mean to kill you, Rhett , but the horse is dead. It has gone to the knackers factory. The cards are fake. It is not impossible to fake cards. Do I know first hand? No, but this hobby is strewn with fakes and that all of the cards be tracked back to this one man and he states, "They are not real." That is a hard poker hand to beat.

Now, that I have summoned an English term, and I am in an impish state of mind, imagine not a dead beaten horse (sorry SPCA for the brutal mental image), but imagine a dead parrot. I did not buy the parrot, but imagine me coming in with that same impish grin and making my argument. Now for a selection from my sense of humor reference library:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

I find the Herp conversation humorous.

Occam's Razor states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

Using Occam's Razor here is what we are left with.

Facts: A gentleman has them for sale and when asked he states they are not real.

Brian's assumptions:
1)They guy knew what he had
2)The guy had a printer
3)The guy had access to vintage paper
4)the guy had access to vintage ink
5)the guy only printed 1 or 2 sets to sell at a single show
6) this guy knew about other images to use that weren't known to the rest of the hobby until future discoveries in other sets

The counter assumptions:
1) The guy didn't know that the cards were real and thought they were fake

Using Occam's Razor it is easy to go with the fact the cards are real.

Andy,

It is humorous. I have been laughing the entire time. Now to sharpen Occam's Razor:

3. The paper did not need to be vintage. The same paper has been used in printing for years. If you don't believe me, ask a printer. Have modifications be made over the years? I am sure they have, but the paper for the most part is the same. It is a cheap product and cheap products remain cheap because, in part, they are mostly not modified.

4. I never said the guy had vintage ink.

Clarification:

5. He printed and then brought to shows the cards from the sheets.

6. The guy knew the sets. The discovery of other images was in regard to this generation of collectors. Older collectors would have run across the Davenport or the Henry, etc.

The cards are fakes. Why? Not because of assumptions, but honesty.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Brian Van Horn

Andy,

It is humorous. I have been laughing the entire time. Now to sharpen Occam's Razor:

3. The paper did not need to be vintage. The same paper has been used in printing for years. If you don't believe me, ask a printer. Have modifications be made over the years? I am sure they have, but the paper for the most part is the same. It is a cheap product and cheap products remain cheap because, in part, they are mostly not modified.

4. I never said the guy had vintage ink.

Clarification:

5. He printed and then brought to shows the cards from the sheets.

6. The guy knew the sets. The discovery of other images was in regard to this generation of collectors. Older collectors would have run across the Davenport or the Henry, etc.

The cards are fakes. Why? Not because of assumptions, but honesty.

Response to each "clarification"

3- It would have to be vintage. Vintage paper and modern paper are NOT the same. For just one example, modern paper has brighteners that wasn't introduced until the 40's this is a reason vintage card collector's use a black light. So you are coming up with a new assumption in place of the vintage paper one, and that is that no one bothered using a black light on one of these cards.

4- As stated with the paper, ink has changed over the years along with the printing process. This has not stated stagnant since 1921. So, again if you don't believe that he used vintage printing techniques than you are assuming no one that has seen them no how to tell a vintage printing from a modern printing.

both above assumptions can be researched more at Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards by David Rudd Cycleback

5- That wasn't a clarification, that is pretty much what I said. That he brought these cards with the intention of only selling the 1 or 2 sets. Having worked in the printing industry I know for a fact that it would have cost more money to produce this set and the designing of it for just 1 or 2 sets.

6- So this older collector had access to these rare images and decided to add them to a set. This is still an assumption just replacing the other one.


And honesty only goes as far as your knowledge. You can honestly be mistaken which is where the counter argument comes from and since this is the only assumption on the counter argument it still wins when using Occam's Razor.

[slidekellyslide]

Is Brian being for real? This just comes off as a complete troll thread.

Vintage paper is not easy to come by, nor is vintage ink. The most likely scenario is that this "honest" fellow came across these cards in a collection, could not find them in a book or online and assumed they were fantasy cards and priced them as such.

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Is Brian being for real? This just comes off as a complete troll thread.

Vintage paper is not easy to come by, nor is vintage ink. The most likely scenario is that this "honest" fellow came across these cards in a collection, could not find them in a book or online and assumed they were fantasy cards and priced them as such.

LOL to the point of hiccupping.

Yes, I am being real.

Guys, the only cards from this set came from this guy. Does this not set off an alarm?