W516 copyright observation

[Spike]

I've studied these sets for several years, taking note of paper stock, ink quality, possible dating based on subjects, number sequences, IFC/IFS insignia, and UNIVERSAL text variations. Several observations came from this work.

Based on similarity to the design, paper stock, and card text of other paper toys made by Universal Toy & Novelty Manufacturing Company of Illinois, I believe that company released all 30 W516 baseball cards, ten W529 boxing cards, 20 Hollywood cards, ten W53 US presidents, and several other subjects that share the same general design for various distribution methods. They printed (at least) strip cards and notebooks based on available images.

Based on the "(C)IFC" or "(C)IFS" licensing of original images, I think Universal Toy started printing sheets of strip cards for Hollywood movies in 1919, soon added baseball and boxing, and expanded into more non-sport sets by 1921. The small globe logo seen on some notebook pages is Universal's own logo, with "Universal" printed on the banner.

William Randolph Hearst's media empire owned (or claimed to own) the licensing rights for many original images for Universal's boxing, Hollywood, and baseball strips, hence the ©IFS, ©IFC, or © that appear on those cards. Two images, Douglas Fairbanks (actor) and Johnny Dundee (boxer) also show the APEDA studio insignia. APEDA did similar photo licensing work in this era.

Turbulence in Hearst's IFS/IFC companies between 1919 and 1920 appear to have led Universal to drop its license attribution. I bet this move cut costs and reflects legal wrangling over image ownership in that era. W520 and W522 baseball sets, for example, appear to be part of larger, multi-subject Universal Toy strips printed in 1920-21 without any licensing. (They might've done this to test recent legal challenges to ownership of a licensed image.)

Print cutting was so poor on many strips that adjacent subjects from the same set or different sets tell us something about their print layout. Sheets for these sets were at least 20 cards wide (two ten-card strips) and perhaps wider. While it's unclear how _tall_ its print sheets were, I think they were at least ten strips high and perhaps taller.

In some cases, it appears Universal Toy printed multiple subjects on the same sheets. In others, they repeated the same subject over and over. I think the layout changed to fit the reason for each sheet. If a Hollywood publicist wanted cards for a movie promotion, they printed those Hollywood cards all at once. If Universal Toy needed something for their own boxes of paper toys, they printed several subjects on one sheet. This work met business needs of the moment and I doubt they thought about who would try to "collect" such cheap products.

Something about their printing process made it practical to print reversed images on some sheets, even when these reversals made baseball players change their dominant hand. Baseball, boxing, US Presidents, Hollywood, and other strips sets came with reversed, if otherwise identical, images. This led to interesting images like this backward strip of presidents (Harding at left, Washington at right) below the titles for a non-reversed 1921 Charlie Chaplin movie strip.

I'll post again soon with a matrix of card details to look for when sorting out these strip sets and their many subjects.

[Spike]

People asked about HOF variations earlier, as well as placement of title text on the strip and printing sheets.

1. The W516-1 version with title text has its own text alignment variations and one of them includes #24 Mathewson. Apologies to his player collectors!

2. Title text can appear multiple times on the same print sheet, above each strip. The boxer variations below show #6 Fulton's card has the "UNIVERSAL" title and another boxing strip _above_ it, so this appears to be a single sheet with repeated boxing strips. I think Universal Toy added their own text to compete against other strip card makers by confirming you were holding a Universal-made strip and (in 1921) adding copyright information to the end of their strips.

If you own cards that fill in the missing variations or have other interesting variations, please share scans!

[Clutch-Hitter]

Becker was a company, not an individual teacher. This makes much more sense.

https://www.shopbecker.com/about-us/

[ricktmd]

Here is a Speaker W516-1-2

[edhans]

Double post.

[edhans]

Originally Posted by Clutch-Hitter

Becker was a company, not an individual teacher. This makes much more sense.

Interesting, but raises more questions than it answers. The founder's name is Charles J. Becker, so the initials do not match. It could, I suppose, have been his wife. The site does not state an exact date when the company was founded, but alludes to "the early 1920s" which lines up with the issue date for W516-1. Most curious is why the "company" would hand write the reverses instead of stamping them. Who were they asking to save their tablet fronts? Were they marketing to teachers? schools? or to the kids directly? The mystery continues...

Here are My 2

[CobbSpikedMe]

Originally Posted by edhans

Interesting, but raises more questions than it answers. The founder's name is Charles J. Becker, so the initials do not match. It could, I suppose, have been his wife. The site does not state an exact date when the company was founded, but alludes to "the early 1920s" which lines up with the issue date for W516-1. Most curious is why the "company" would hand write the reverses instead of stamping them. Who were they asking to save their tablet fronts? Were they marketing to teachers? schools? or to the kids directly? The mystery continues...

I have a hard time accepting the idea that this Becker company was behind these cards. Why would they hand write this note on the back and put anyone's name on the note? I am strongly under the belief that a teacher made these and passed them out to the children. What I have never been able to conclude is why the note was written on these cards and given the children in the first place. Why wouldn't Becker just tell the kid to save their tablet fronts for a prize or write it on the side of the chalk board and leave it there (i.e. not erase that part of the board for a while)? What's the purpose of the cards in this whole scenario?

And why have we never seen one that is not in really nice condition? I like Ed's idea that these ones were never distributed and are leftovers. That would explain the condition being so nice for them. The ones that were given out were either turned in with the tablet fronts and just tossed in the trash, or the kids kept them, and they eventually ended up in trash that way.




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