W516 copyright observation

[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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