1889 N526 Diamond James A. Hart How scarce

[BobC]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

I was talking with BobC about this set in the REA thread, and was going to start a new thread until I found this old one as a jumping off point.

Here's one I got in September with the Diamond S back. I'm at 10/15 and will post scans tomorrow with some more discussion about back checklists. Neat to see Bruce completed the set by fronts.

Hey Rob,

Didn't remember this old thread either, thanks for resurrecting it to discuss these without taking away from the REA thread.

Interesting that the card the OP originally posted was very clearly mislabeled. Not sure how somehow could so easily have messed that up. Given the overall rarity and uniqueness of these cards, you would think someone more knowledgeable would have been involved in its grading, and/or that some research was required. The old SCD catalogs showed and described these as three distinct sets/variations, so you'd think coming to the correct answer wouldn't have been that difficult. The most common two variations being the "Number 7 Cigars" or "Diamond S Cigars" backs. The third variation/version had "C. S. White & Co." printed at the top on the front of the card, not on the back. I'm still waiting to see one of those come up for sale.

You mentioned possibly going for a master set one day with the two different brands/backs. So how many of your 10 different fronts do you have in each different back/brand? Of my 6 cards I've got 4 with Diamond S Cigar backs, and 2 with the Number 7 Cigar brand back.

Also, for a 15-card set (14 players and manager James A. Hart) of just a single team from 1889 (the Boston Beaneaters), it surprisingly includes four HOF players; Chas. (Old Hoss) Radbourn, John Clarkson, Dennis (Dan) Brouthers, and Mike (King) Kelly. That is pretty darn good HOF representation for a single team from a single year. So how many, if any, of the HOFers do you have? I've got Clarkson and Kelly myself, along with two cards of manager James Hart, one each with the different Number 7 and Diamond S backs. Forgive me for misspeaking in that other REA thread as I only have 5 different fronts, and not 6 after all.

And an interesting factoid regarding James (Jim) Hart. Along with being a manager of various ballclubs besides the Beaneaters, he was also an executive and owner of various teams, including at one time the Chicago Cubs. And I believe these N526 "cards" may be the only card issue that Hart appears on.

Likewise, the N526 "card" of J.B. Ray you just won from REA may also be the only known card issue that exists for him as well. That might also help to explain the rather strong price I thought it got. And as you had pointed out in the REA thread, the card should say I.B. Ray, and not J.B. Ray. Irving Burton Ray only played in 9 games for the Beaneaters in 1889 before being sold to the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association on August 16, 1889, for $1,500.00. He went by Irv, and is listed/referenced as such in Baseball Reference. Everyone else in this N526 set, besides Ray and Hart, appears in the N172 Old Judge set, along with other then contemporary card issues/sets for many of them. Once again, think you had a super pick-up on that Ray card, and didn't realize the possible added rarity until after doing a little bit of additional research.

Most definitely an extremely underappreciated, and an awfully obscure and unknown set, given some of the players included in it.