Question on 41 Playball Copyright Variation

[Kutcher55]

That is interesting. My breakout has a similarly odd profile. In cards 1-24, 18 of my 23 have '@ 1941' (missing Greenberg). In cards 25-48, only 8 of 24 have '@1941.'

That fits with earlier poster comment that 75% of the Ted Williams (#14) cards he surveyed had @1941.

It hints at either a third printing or perhaps there were SPs or DPs in this set after all. Curious if others show a higher % of '@ 1941s' in 1-24 as compared to 25-48.

[spec]

Like my neighbor, Lucky Larry, 31 of my 1941 Play Balls feature 1941 with the copyright (1-24 plus 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38).

[Kutcher55]

Cool! This means beyond much doubt that there were at least three separate print runs of this set. My theory is there was an initial run of just cards 1-24 with ‘@1941’. Then there was a subsequent and possibly smaller print run of cards 1-48 also with ‘@ 1941.” And then finally a larger delayed print run of 1-72 without the ‘1941.’

This would be supported by the fact that there are few stars in #25-48 so perhaps the second run was smallest of all and maybe the one most interrupted by war activities. The only thing I don’t like about the theory is that #49-72 would only appear on 1 of 3 print runs so you would think those cards would be more scarce than they seem to be. But perhaps this was a slightly larger run than the first two. Or, maybe they overprinted 49-72 in the final run to help catch those cards up a bit?

Either way there had to have been at least 3 print runs.

[LuckyLarry]

numbered 1-24: 23 of these 24 cards have @1941 with only #4 Paul Derringer missing

numbered 25-48: 8 of these 24 cards have @1941

Larry