Random Exhibit questions

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Posted By: warshawlaw

1. The set designations you reference are the work of legendary collector Elwood "Woody" Scharf in series of articles he wrote for The Trader Speaks in the 1970's. They rose to the status of official designations among old-time collectors but never made the mainstream hobby press (Beckett, Standard Catalogue) hence are not used today. His work was really good, but a little too detailed for most collectors' tastes. One example: he broke the set of 1926-29 PC backed baseball players into three separate sets (81, 82, 83) based on issuance dates and certain variations that can be really picayune and hard to follow.

2. With no copyrights on the cards, this is one of the most complex issues in Exhibit collecting, for which there is no true answer. The set assumption rests on printing sheet configuration: 32 per sheet. People assume that all sets must be multiples of 32 or fractions of 32 (8, 16). There is no reason to suggest that just because the company used 32 cards to a sheet, there were 32 or 64 or 96 or 128 cards to a set. You have to remember, this was not Topps issuing one sport at a time. ESCO issued many subjects in identical formats, so there is no absolute reason why a sheet is a set. Also, you have to allow for double prints. Unfortunately, poses are reused/reissued. The boxing cards issued contemporaneously actually have back biographies and copyrights, but I have proven (I think) that they were issued over a three year period, with deletions and additions during that time. The 1921 set, for example, has 59 cards, not 64 (2 sheets); I suspect double prints of five boxers that were replaced in 1923 with new cards. I would not be at all surprised if the baseball cards followed the same pattern. Also, there were cards added to and dropped from the print run in boxing and I have no reason to suspect that they did not do the same with baseball. There are certainly new issues for each year, how many is questionable. The 1922 cards are readily distinguished by their use of a solid, thin line identifying the subject. The 1921's all use a fancier script that includes thicker letters with spaces in some of the letter parts. The 1923s are rare cards that use a fancy script like the 1921s but in a thin line like the 1922s. If you have a reissued player, it is not possible to determine which year the card is from.

3. Sort of. There are 3 main variations in the origin lines. The earliest cards use "MADE IN THE USA". The middle cards use "Made In The USA". The last issued cards use "Printed In The USA". Some cards are found with more than one designation. There are also sub-variations to these print themes that you simply have to see side by side to understand. There are also spillover cards from one "set" to the next, most notably DiMaggio and Williams, who were produced in the Salutations format well after 1947. I have seen advertising materials listing them with later produced cards. The listing in the Standard Catalogue is pretty good at listing all the subjects but does not address the sub-variations within the particular subjects, but I am afraid that endeavor would require a far more detailed analysis than the format would permit.