1898-99 National Copper Plates and 1899-1900 M101-1 The Sporting News

[Baseball Rarities]

I have always been interested in these sets, but it does not seem like there is a lot of information out there regarding them. It would be great if anyone with any info about these sets would share it here.

Here is the little information that I know about these sets. I will sometimes refer to these as "cards" just for the sake of simplicity. I know that many collectors disagree on exactly what a "rookie" card is and specifically what qualifies as a "card."

I know that the National Copper Plates were issued both in small portfolios that included 6 players. These portfolios were stapled together as a bound volume. These began April 22, 1898 and were supposed to run weekly for 26 weeks. I have only seen the first two issues and have no idea how many they actually issued.

M101-1s were issued by The Sporting News one at a time as supplements to their weekly newspaper. They issued a total of 62 cards starting on April 22, 1899 and ending on October 20, 1900. Each supplement has The Sporting News advertising and its date of issue listed at the top.

There was also a 50 subject portfolio issued by The Sporting News. These do not contain The Sporting News advertising at the top. They were bound together by a string and could easily be separated into individual pieces. I am aware of two known portfolios - one was sold by REA in 2014 and is still intact. The other was sold by Christie's in 2016 and was broken up. The one sold by Christie's has a heavy burlap cover which had advertising for The Sporting News on it. Even though this portfolio was issued by The Sporting News, I think that people refer to them as National Copper Plates since there is no advertising on them, but many do have a National Copper Plate copyright.

Here are the Wagners for the two different sets for illustrative purposes. The M101-1 Sporting News is from the recent REA sale and the Wagner with no advertising is from the Sporting News portfolio of 50 subjects that was sold by Christie's.

These were both issued in 1899 and are dated below the image with the M101-1 having the specific August 19, 1899 date at the top as well.

All of the images are stolen from the internet.