N566 Newsboy Pugilists and their variations

[G1911]

And a contribution found by another collector who prefers to remain anonymous makes for 20 combinations thus far. This Corbett is a good contrast to the last one from Ed. That card in post 29 has the photo cut abnormally large, and this one is on the other extreme end, the photograph cut pretty small. Again we can see that these are all handcut pictures, and so cropping varies by at least a fraction between basically every single card in the series.

Font 1, no name or number in photo, name on mount without a number.

Updated Work in Progress "Master Set" Checklist (20 cards):
23 J.J. Corbett (Portrait, font 1)
23 J.J. Corbett (Portrait, font 2)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, font 2, name on photo, no number)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting, font 2, no name/number on photo, both name/number on card)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, font 2, number on photo, number and name on card)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, font 1, no number, name on photo)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, font 1, no name or number on either)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, font 1, nothing on photo, name on mount)
72 J.J. Corbett (Fighting pose, Campbell)
72 J.J. Corbett (Portrait, font 2, number on photo, name/number on mount)
73 Peter Jackson (Foot straight, font 2, no number, name on mount)
73 Peter Jackson (Foot straight, font 1, number in photo, name on mount
73 Peter Jackson (Foot straight, font 1, number in photo and on mount, name on mount)
73 Peter Jackson (Foot straight, font 1, no number/name in photo, name on mount)
73 Peter Jackson (Foot straight, font 2, nothing in photo, number and name both on mount)
73 Peter Jackson (Foot angled, font 1, name in photo, no name or number on mount)
347 James J. Corbett (No advertising on back)
966 Bob Fitzsimmons (Newsboy, font 2)
966 Bob Fitzsimmons (Campbell)
1068 John L. Sullivan (Newsboy, font 2)

[Exhibitman]

The Red Indian back is on at least one other card. Also a Boston Herald back on a Campbell Fitzsimmons.



I suspect that all of the minute variations were simply the result of making new batches of cards when the orders exhausted the old one.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

The Red Indian back is on at least one other card. Also a Boston Herald back on a Campbell Fitzsimmons.



I suspect that all of the minute variations were simply the result of making new batches of cards when the orders exhausted the old one.

Thanks Adam, I forgot about the Herald’s I should have included as a possibility in the OP. That makes 21 combinations.

Different cards within a series of the Newsboys don’t seem to all have the same combinations available - I suspect from what I’ve seen that they were released somehow in subseries that roughly track the number, with some cards replaced by new cards and some continued into later productions and thus only coming with whichever of the minute variations was being made at that exact time in production.

The only odd thing is the existence of font 1 and font 2 on basically everything, the two mounts in main series 1 existing on everything and the same for most of series 3 until the rarest number sequences are hit and there’s just not a sample size to look at.


I do wonder if the Jackson second pose was a ‘mistake’, or an intended photo change like the other photograph variations tied to the same number. As it looks so very similar and seems to be unusually rare for a first release pose so wonder if it was just a mistake and they didn’t really intend to use a different picture that production run.