1921 Herpolsheimers graded w/o mark

[nolemmings]

The cards are real. They are neither fantasy nor counterfeit.

As Al mentioned in the write up, there was much upheaval at Herpolsheimer’s in 1920-21, as the grandfather died and the father who ran the store died unexpectedly not long thereafter. The business did not pass to the oldest son, who had worked there unremarkably, and the most experienced or capable management employee resigned because of differences with that oldest son. The son next in line was only 19 when his dad died, so technical management went to the widow, and as a result the former employee came back as general manager, with #2 son taking the reins in 1921 and oldest son shown the door around the end of 1921 (he would later sue over his inheritance). No doubt all of this maneuvering and various family tussles affected promotional and advertising plans.

I will go out on a limb a little and say that any future finds of this set will number in the dozens of cards, as was the case with the first group offered and now the one in LOTG. I say this because Herpolsheimers is the only advertiser of these 1920-21 cards that did business as a department store. The others were various bread/bakery shops or confectioner/candy makers that likely meted out the cards one per unit. Unlike what happened in 1916, when Herpolsheimer distributed its cards in series of 20 cards per/week, here the cards are unnumbered and “series” would not have made much sense. I suspect that they flat out sold them either as an entire set or in groups of several cards, rather than adding them as prizes to a store purchase. I also would not be surprised if the original owner of the cards in the Band-Aid find had a sibling or two with whom he shared the cards at first, with the others being less carefully kept over the years and now lost (although that is obviously just a wild guess). Again, however, it appears whatever the distribution plan, it was not in place very long.