Defining pre-war rookie cards! Ahhh.....

[Baseball Rarities]

Originally Posted by Matt

When dating sets, we always assume they were produced at 1 time, unless we have proof to the contrary. The original 1907-1909 designation for the NC PCs was due to previous folks not being able to narrow the date; Kevin showed that 1907 or 1908 were not possible. Otherwise, you could claim a wide time frame for any issue - e.g. prove to me the E102 issue wasn't produced over many years from 1908-1912?

I have received requests by a couple of collectors for my thoughts on the dating of the Novelty Cutlery postcards (which I feel is 1910) so I decided to post them here.

The 1982 Sport Americana Baseball Memorabilia and Autograph Price Guide by Jim Beckett and Denny Eckes list both the PC796 Sepia Postcard set and the Novelty Cutlery Postcard set as being from 1910. The PC796 checklist shows 25 players, including Sam Frock. The description of the 1910 Novelty Cutlery set notes that the pictures and subjects of the set are the exact same as the PC796 set except that the images were cropped smaller to fit within the more ornate borders of the Novelty Cutlery cards. For some reason, Beckett did not include these issues in their normal yearly Price Guides and many, if not most, baseball card collectors are not even aware that they were checklisted in this book.

The 1975 edition of The Sports Collectors Bible by Bert Sugar lists the PC796 Sepia Postcard as being from c. 1910. It does not include a checklist. It did not have an entry for the Novelty Cutlery set. Same thing for the 1977 edition. It was not until the 1979 edition that the Novelty Cutlery set was included. The Sports Collectors Bible gave the Novelty Cutlery set the designation PC805 and dated it as being from 1907. They make no comment as the set being related (or in this case identical) to the PC796 Sepia set. This is ironic because the book cross-referenced many other sets, such as the M101-5 and M101-4 sets with the different sets that shared their images.

It should also be noted that the Bible listed the checklist for the Novelty Cutlery set (they did not for the PC796 set) and misspelled the name of "Frock" as "Flock." Obviously, this is where all of the different checklists came up with the name "Flick" which they felt was just "Flock" misspelled.

Over the years, the 1907 date and the name "Flock" has been used by different price guides. Obviously, these price guides cannot do extensive research on every set that they include and instead use whatever public information that they can get their hands on. Unfortunately, when a mistake is made (1907 dating and "Flick") is it copied as well.

Even today, the 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards by Bob Lemke has 26 subjects in the Novelty Cutlery set with both Flick and Frock included, but only 25 subjects in the PC796 set, with only Frock. They use the correct 1910 date for the PC796 set, but still use the 1907 date for the Novelty Cutlery set, though they now call it "1907-1909" so that the players who could not possibly have had a card in 1907 or 1908 can be explained.

My feeling is that the Bible erroneously came up with the 1907 date and was not even aware that the set mirrored the existing 1910 PC796 set. I think that both sets date from 1910. In addition to the info that I originally posted here,

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=128350

there are other clues that lead me to believe this:

Some are common sense - why would Speaker have been included in a 1907 or 1908 set? He was a full time minor league player at the time. He only played in 38 major league games during those two years and barely managed a .200 average. Would it not have made more sense for the set to have been produced in 1910 after his breakout rookie campaign of 1909?

Second, I have never seen a Novelty Cutlery Postcard with a postmark before 1911, let alone 1907, 1908 or 1909. I have seen two PC796 postcards with postmarks of 1910. Who knows, maybe Novelty Cutlery used the images in the PC796 set and did not produce the set until 1911.

Also, how can the card of Cobb and Wagner (not my card) be explained? I assume that the picture used was taken during the 1909 World Series. If so, then the earliest that this photo could have been taken was October 8, 1909. I doubt that they could not have produced a postcard with this image until 1910 as these were not Real Photo Postcards.

Any other thoughts or viewpoints would be appreciated.