1921-23 E220 National Caramel Dating Re-evaluation

[rhettyeakley]

The Herb Pennock thread got me thinking about the E220 set and it's proposed date of 1921-23. This was an assumption made by Lew Lipset in his Encyclopedia many years ago. It seems like we should revisit this set and try to re-establish the date a little more concrete.

The set states on the back that there are 120 subjects, which is actually VERY accurate considering most of these sets were not that accurate (see E121 Series of 80). The E220 is known to include 115 diff subjects w/ 5 being featured on two different poses.

This has been a fairly popular set with "Rookie" collectors for a while because of that pesky 1921 date, which I propose it not accurate.

Due to the fact there are 120 different cards known and the back says there were 120 subjects what then leads us to believe these were distributed over many years w/ changes? There are actually two different backs known that I pointed out a few years ago which are a bit tough to distinguish so there were at least 2 "printings" but one would think that if they were updating this set a la the E121 series of 80 then we would have been left w/ more than the 120 known cards that we know of as they elimated one player to add another.

The players:
A few players began their career w/ a particular team in 1922 (I see no cards where 1923 is the earliest poss date)...

-George J. Burns (Cincinnati)
-Joe Dugan (Boston Red Sox)

This would lead us to conclude that the set was at the earliest made in 1922

The following are the "anamolies" in the set as they were done with their careers (or with that team) before the the 1922 season (date is last year w/ that team)

-George H. Burns (Cleveland) 1921
-Shano Collins (Red Sox) 1920
-Art Fletcher (Ginats) 1920
-Larry Kopf (Reds) 1921
-George Pakert (Cubs) 1920
-Scott Perry (A's) 1921
-Everett Scott (Red Sox) 1921
-Vernon Spencer (Giants) 1920
-Whitey Witt (A's) 1921

It has long been established that the FIRST year a player is with a team is the way to determine the date of a set and not the LAST year they are with a team as the manufacturer could have just been working with outdated info.

This is obviously a wierd set as they were up to date on many players' movements but a few (specifically Collins, Fletcher, Paskert and Spencer) were fairly well out of date. I would propose the MOST LIKELY DATE OF THIS SET IS 1922 NOT 1921-23 like previously stated. This isn't going to be too popular with those Rookie Card guys but I believe it to be more accurate.

Thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc are all welcome. I admittedly haven't put too much time into this so feel free to disagree with anything I have said!!!

-Rhett