Help With Old Judge White Whales

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

Not to derail Jay's BST entry, but I'll provide a brief explanation . . .

First, we cannot take credit for the list as provided above. This is based on the Cartophilic listing, we added hundreds of additions (including Dalrymple), but credit for the way in which the set has been checklisted is owed to the British Cartophilic Society.

The Old Judge book does cover how to decode the Cartophilic listing but can be broken down as follows:

B-0229-A = Leading zero type A (flying hot dog 'Old Judge' Cigarette banner)
B-0229-B = Leading zero type B ('Old Judge' Cigarette typical in rectangular box, script at bottom)
Fa = one of two N172 types from 1888
Fc = 1889 N172
Es = Gypsy Queen
G = Cabinet

If you watch for Abner's cards long enough, you may very well discover new variations not checklisted. I suspect he had more than one pose issued as GQ and cabinet, also suspect more of his poses were issued in 1888. He could have several more variants but are all likely rare, some perhaps lost to time. Let us know if you identify a new variant, good luck!!

Let me echo what Joe said. The original Old Judge listing published by the British Cartophilic Society was compiled by the great Edward Wharton-Tigre. We just updated what he had done in the pre-internet age. He did all the heavy lifting.