Jay Publishing question

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

Bumping an old thread.

Are there any Jay collectors out there that can advise how the discern years of publication? I have a Johnny Antonelli player collection and I am trying to make heads or tails out of what I have and what I am missing. I have pulled down what is shown on TCDB and the 1955, 1956 Picture Pack 10 subjects, and 1956 Picture Pack 12 subjects appear identical.

I downloaded the three images, cropped out the borders and created an animated GIF so you can see what I mean:



There is an obvious change in darkness, but that could be an artifact of scanning rather than actual differences in the several issues. Is there a way to differentiate or do I just throw up my hands and say if I have one that I have them all?

As Jolly Elm has said, you cannot trust TCDB completely. The site has a lot of good info, but not all of it is correct. For instance, the 1958 Yankees team photo set (the non-Jay photo set and non-Action photo set) had a couple of Jay photos shown for a couple of players. In addition, it did not have the correct checklist. I sent a correction to them last fall. I got a question in October about it and quickly responded. I didn't hear back from them until February of this year. The message said my checklist did not match the checklist listed in KeymanCollectibles. My response was that the checklist was wrong and I can send pictures of the set. I never heard back. And now, since then, more Jay photos have been added for the set. So, don't completely trust TCDB info.

At one point I compiled a montage of Mantle photos from the 1957 to 1960 Jay sets. Here it is:

Jay's Mantles 1957 - 1960 shrunk.jpg

As shown, there are various cropping differences between the different years. The first picture is from a 1957 25-photo set. The next is from a 1958 12-photo set. The next two are from 1958 World Series packs (a Yankees 12 photo pack and a Yankees-Braves 24 photo pack). The next two are from a 1959 All-Star pack and a 1959 12-photo Yankee team pack. The next two are from a 1960 All-Star pack and a 1960 12-photo Yankee team pack. I'm not sure about the date for the last one. So, even though the same photo is used each year, there are cropping differences.

I think your best bet is to find someone who has all 3 years of the complete Giant photo packs. They can confirm whether TCDB has the correct photos for each year or whether there is a slight cropping difference between the years.

Good luck!