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Posted By: Eric

Hey Rob,

I have a few UJ's, one with each background color: red, navy and purple. Until seeing your example, I wan't aware that a green background existed. Looking at all of my UJ's, they all appear to have the same cardboard thickness. One thing about cardboard thickness though, if UJ had two separate printing runs it's highly possible they used two different cardboard stocks. Perhaps the green cards were done in a secondary printing, using the larger and heavier cardboard. This wouldn't be a startling revelation, many companies had multiple printings back then. For the sake of saving money, second (or third or fourth) print jobs were done using a different cardboard stock from the first. The Fritsch card looks to be completely legit from the scan, and I'm not aware of any reprints done for UJ's..at any time. The added border also wouldn't provoke me to think the cards were fake. Many vintage issues feature petty differences in presentation and layout.
When produced, many card issues in the 20s and early 30s included multiple styles of stock (cardboard), with certain cards being much rarer than others (no doubt due to a less sizeable printing run). Since UJ baseball cards were only produced one year, I think the company was reacting to the baseball card marketing craze in 1933, and probably put their issue together very quickly and hastily. If the green background cards are legit (which they appear to be), I'd have to think that the red, blue and purple tints were produced first. If this run of cards sold quickly, perhaps the green tints were produced afterwards, to help supply that demand. One can only speculate without understanding original production.

E.