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warshawlawI can tell you right now that anyone who claims to have a complete set of less than several hundred cards has no idea what they are talking about. In brief, the company started a practice at the outset of its product run of reprinting and reusing older format card fronts. This was not confusing from 1921-1928 when the company (with a few notable exceptions) put copyright dates on the card backs (along with bios and records, BTW). Beginning with the Depression, however, and running to the end of the card run, the company dropped the card back printing and copyright dating. It has also been proven through reference to the company's advertising materials that the company printed popular boxers' cards from earlier print runs in later print runs of different styles (this also happened with the "1939-1947" Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams Salutations cards, which is why they are relatively easy to find today and why the popularly accepted catalogue dates are really not accurate as it relates to those players). The best documented example of this practice in the boxing field is the company's use of the Jake La Motta "salutation" type card (the sole La Motta it made) well into the 1950's with its "regular" runs of cards. I have a photocopy of an advertising card listing a print run of 32 cards from the 1950's that includes both La Motta (known only in the salutations format) and Marciano (known only in a format showing just his name in a mock autograph style). Given this blending of "sets", many collectors try (fruitlessly, IMHO) to differentiate between different print runs based on ink color and shape, case and size of the tag line (Made in USA or Printed in USA). This rapidly turns into a mess because many cards are known in more than one format due to reuse in later print runs. The longer a boxer was popular and in contention, the more variations can be found in the minute printing details.
My experience is that when someone talks about a "set" of these cards from the 1950's, they are referring to a print run (each sheet was 32 cards) or more typically to a cluster of 32 cards with similar characteristics that they have grouped together.