Ok, found my notes.
Frank Ward has stated a few times on various boards that Tango Eggs were known to exist before the find. Since I've always found Frank to be a solid source of knowledge and never passing off speculation or fuzzy memory as fact, I took his words as fact and worked backwards to try and prove them.
In my mind, this proof came in the form of the Oakes above, and was corroborated by the Cobb that surfaced last year. Both were obviously in considerably lesser condition than the rest of the find that came up about '91, and seemed to indicate that they were in circulation since '16.
You'll note that the stamp on the back of the Oakes reads " No. 435"
The Cobb that was found last year and sold in Goodwins auction is stamped "No. 552" which leads me to several theories (and I stress it should be taken just as that, speculation)
- Each card that was released was numbered. Perhaps for some sort of redemption, perhaps not. But the fact that Numbers 435 and 552 have been found leads me to believe there were at least 552 issued.
-The set now numbers 19 known. This is fact. 16 in the REA auction, plus the acknowledged (by Rob) Cobb and Schaeffer, plus my Oakes. My speculation is that that is an odd number to print, and doesn't make sense. You don't leave blank space on a printing sheet- it's a waste of money, since you're still paying for paper, ink and press time. Given the parallels between this set and the E106 set it is plausible that the set initially totaled 48 subjects, with a different back (Tango Eggs) printed on that set. Each known Tango card has the exact same front as the corresponding card in the E106 set, just with a different back and in a few cases (Weaver among them) the Tango set has changed the correct name of the player in the E106 set to an incorrect identification when printed for Tango. If this theory is correct then there was (or is) another pose of Cobb, a couple of different Wagners, as well as a Matty, Marquard, Lajoie, Speaker, Bender and McGraw, among others. One prominent collector has always insisted he either has or has owned 2 different Cobbs, but has never produced images.
- Again, there is no reason to have 300 Beschers printed and only 1 Cobb. The same amount was probably printed of each card, but neither Bescher nor Jennings were probably ever distributed, and Cobb and Oakes were. There were a handful of leftovers of Morgan (the letter above and the REA description states there is only one of these, which is incorrect. There are at least 2) and Crawford and Bresnahan, et al, so those were kept in the pile that eventually became "the find".
Like most E cards of the era, Tango Eggs exhibit incredible color and by being hidden away for 75 years has provided an opportunity to obtain examples (most often the relatively common Bescher and Jennings) in near pristine condition for a low price. It will be interesting to see if any more surface.
|