N172 “No Name” Cards

[Joe_G.]

Fred sent me the image he wanted posted (thanks Fred) and I added a couple others for comparison (Fred's copy being far left). I agree that Hafner must be the toughest 1889 script card to read. Even with a strong image you have to strain to make out the name. I followed Kevin's lead and inverted the colors to help find the name "HAFNER, P. KANSAS CITY"; not sure it helps much.

[Fred]

Joe,

Thank you for posting the scan.

Gotta love the OJs!

[sreader3]

Just picked-up this Darnbrough script card on a BIN. I am not an OJ expert but the other examples of this pose I have seen have the name plate. Not sure why it's labeled as MC. Maybe PSA mistakenly thought the name was cut-off.

[Joe_G.]

Hey Scot, yet another example of an 1889 pose found with both script and a block text panel. I used to own the attached example which would be the twin to yours.

Edited to add: A fairly large number of the 1889 Denver poses are catalogued as both script and block text. It is plausible that the first 1889 Denver cards originate from a 24 card photo/sheet that relied on the script names already present on the negatives, however, the card maker ultimately decided to add block text panels to make many of the cards easier to read, perhaps coinciding with a team change correction (team changes being common reason to re-shoot a 24 image/card matrix and responsible for many variations from minor cropping differences to more significant variations). By far, 1889 is the most common year to find minor card-to-card variations of the same pose.

As of yet, no other "no name" cards have been shared/revealed.

[sreader3]

Joe, That's a beauty. If you had said that you still owned it you would be getting a PM from me right now trying to pry it away from you for my Denver collection! Scot

[Matthew H]

I just came across this while looking at old auctions... What do you guys think? ( another 1889 Denver pose)

http://www.19thcenturyonly.com/site/...etauctionid=60

[Joe_G.]

Great work Matthew!, it looks to me like a 2nd "no name" card has been identified. I'm not surprised it is an 1889 Denver card. As stated earlier, it looks like many of the 1889 Denver cards were issued without a block text name panel for part of the production run even though the script name on the negative was tough to read (or in this case outside of the cropping imposed on the N172 card). Perhaps after realizing the script name on the negative was hard to read on the small N172 cards, they thought better of it and added the block text panels. This very McQuaid pose which has no name (or an extremely tough one to see), may have been responsible for the 24 image sheet to be re-created with the block text panels. I've attached an example of McQuaid both ways.

No Name N172 Checklist:
112-2 - Con Daley - R/hand on him, L/arm at side
318-3 - James McQuaid - Catch, hands outstretched head high on L

The Old Judge book actually shows the "no name" McQuaid (different example than the one posted below) but the image is a bit lighter and I previously thought the script name was there but difficult to see. The example you provided more clearly shows the name is not there.

Keep searching, perhaps we can add more poses to the list.