Looking for proof (D303 Mothers' Bread)

[brass_rat]

Scully: I need something to put my back up against, Mulder. I need scans!

Mulder: I know. I feel the same way. We've got The X-Files and Zach's Lousiana Cards website, and I believe what we're looking for is out there. I'm more certain than ever the truth is out there, Scully.

Scully: I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers. I need scans of D303 Mothers' Bread Bressler and Lajoie before I can believe, Mulder!


Can anybody help Mulder and Scully find the truth? Do the D303 Mothers' Bread Bressler and Lajoie exist, or are the checklists just wrong?

[Leon]

Steve
SInce there is definitely a D303 General Baking Lajoie I have to think there is a Mothers Bread hiding somewhere. I think one pops up eventually. And these were from my last collection...

[gabrinus]

Steve I have owned a General Baking Lajoie but I have never seen a Mothers Bread Lajoie. I have never seen a Bressler either and have serious doubts about it existing. However, with your discovery of the Eddie Foster Mothers Bread it could still be out there.......Jerry

[brass_rat]

Hey Leon and Jerry,

Thanks for the input -- here are some of my thoughts:

• Inclusion in the D303 General Baking set doesn't necessarily mean you'll find a Mothers' Bread version. Several players in the Mothers' Bread set are not in the General Baking set. Those players borrow poses from other players at the same position though.
  
  
• My guess is that a Bressler is more likely to exist than a Lajoie. Why? Bressler is an odd mistaken player for a checklist. He doesn't have any other E or D cards, and he was a 19 year-old rookie in 1914 going 10-4 and followed it up by going 4-17 on a last place team in 1915. Hardly reason to include him on a regional issue, but also just as weird of a potential mistake on a checklist.
  
  I'm throwing out a guess here, but if Bressler ever shows up, I'd think that he'd have the same picture/pose as Hooks Wiltse in the General Baking set. Why? Bressler was a lefty, and Wiltse is the only left-handed pitcher in the GB set that isn't a known player in the Mothers' Bread set. Also, Wiltse was on his way out of baseball at that point, leaving the Giants after 1914 to pitch in only 18 games in the Federal League in 1915.
  
  Also, the inclusion of Bressler somewhat makes sense in light of the fact that Billy Meyer was included in the set. Meyer only played two full seasons in the majors -- 1916-17 with Phila. Am. -- and was far from a star. Meyer's only other card from the era is his Tango Eggs. So perhaps both Bressler and Meyer were inserted into the set for the same (unknown) reason.
  
  
• I have no real guesses as to whether Lajoie is real or a mistake on the checklist. I'll call it a coin flip...but it would be great if someone reading this (and owns a MB Lajoie) would share with us their great card!

Here's a couple of cards for show and tell. Foster pictures Clyde Engle. Matty and Speaker have my favorite blazing sunset backgrounds. The Matty is the nicest PSA 1 I think I'll ever own.

Cheers,
Steve

[arcadekrazy]

The truth is out there......





Really nice cards. Love this issue

[gabrinus]

Does anyone know who first catalogued the Mothers' Bread cards?? The early price guides I have don't even mention them...in fact when I first came across them I didn't view them as separate....it would be interesting to know if maybe that person has seen a Bressler.....Jerry

[brass_rat]

Also, to clarify the Bressler pose prediction with respect to players/positions/poses, I'll copy over some info from my Nov. 2016 post introducing Eddie Foster to the checklist.

In the case where the player is in the Mothers' Bread set but is not in the E106 nor D303 General Baking sets, the Mothers' Bread player images are of other players from the same fielding position in the E106 set.

Both Eddie Foster and Clyde Engle are third base, 3b.

Other players in the Mothers' Bread set but not in the E106/D303-GB sets include:
Felsch (Demmitt pictured, both are position c.f.)
Louden (Knabe pictured, both are position 2b.)
Meyer (Jacklitsch pictured, both are position c.)
Morgan (Doolan pictured, Morgan is 2b. and Doolan is s.s., but Doolan played 2b. and s.s.)
Weaver (Tinker pictured, both are position s.s.)

[brass_rat]

Originally Posted by gabrinus

Does anyone know who first catalogued the Mothers' Bread cards?? The early price guides I have don't even mention them...in fact when I first came across them I didn't view them as separate....it would be interesting to know if maybe that person has seen a Bressler.....Jerry

I have a 1983 Erbe guide that only checklists 49 General Baking cards...Lew Lipset's Volume 2 only goes so far as to mention D303 in an appendix -- General Baking isn't even mentioned by name, let alone Mothers'. So that takes us up to 1984. (Lew checklisted 51 D303 cards.)

I guess I don't have much more to add after that.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by brass_rat

I have a 1983 Erbe guide that only checklists 49 General Baking cards...Lew Lipset's Volume 2 only goes so far as to mention D303 in an appendix -- General Baking isn't even mentioned by name, let alone Mothers'. So that takes us up to 1984. (Lew checklisted 51 D303 cards.)

I guess I don't have much more to add after that.

I went through some old (1940s-1960s) checklists, Stirling, etc.....I have some more to go through....Burdick never classified Mothers D303.

[t213]

Here are my D303 GB Lajoie and D303 MB Louden

Andy

[brass_rat]

Thanks for sharing, Andy!

Louden is one of those players that helps pin down 1916 as the release date for the Mothers' Bread cards. Louden's only season with Cincinnati was 1916, having been acquired on December 23, 1915.

Also, the following info will further my suspicion that Hooks Wiltse is the "pictured player" on the Bressler, should anyone choose to show the card.

All of the "pictured players" in the Mothers' Bread set were basically on their way out of baseball by 1915. In that context, it makes sense that players would be substituted in a 1916 issue. Hooks Wiltse's 1915 season was his last, split between the minors and the Federal League.

"Pictured Player" (Mothers' Bread player caption in parenthesis):

• Ray Demmitt (Happy Felsch in Mothers' Bread)...played most of 1915 in the minors and all of 1916 and 1917 in the minors
• Clyde Engle (Eddie Foster)...played in the Federal League in 1914 and 1915, and only 11 games with Cleveland in 1916
• Otto Knabe (William Louden)...finished in 1916 by playing with Cleveland and Chicago.
• Fred Jacklitsch (Billy Meyer)...spent his last two seasons (1914-1915) in the Federal League.
• Mickey Doolan (Ray Morgan)...1914 and 1915 in the Federal League and spent 1916 with the Cubs and Giants...1917 in the minors. He was back in the majors in 1918, the only one of these "pictured players" to really play past 1916.
• Joe Tinker (Buck Weaver)...1914 and 1915 in the Federal League and went back to the Cubs for 7 games in 1916.
• So, all of this leads me to believe that Hooks Wiltse, having closed out his career in 1915 and the only left-handed pitcher in the General Baking set who is not also included in the Mothers' Bread set, is pictured on Rube Bressler's card in Mothers' Bread.

Research possible thanks to baseball-reference.com.

Here's Bressler's 1916 batterymate, Rube Meyer (Fred Jacklitsch pictured).

Cheers,
Steve

[gabrinus]

Steve, I think you are probably right.....I checked my old SCD catalogs and the 2000 version does not list Mothers Breads but the 2006 one does and it lists a Bressler so someone must have seen or heard of one.....unless it is like the T206 Hustlers and just reputed to exist.........Jerry

[brass_rat]

Hey Jerry! Thanks for scanning this checklist that I'm attaching below.

A few interesting things:

• Players added to the list after this publication:
  Donovan, Foster, Gibson, Hartzell, Matthewson (Mathewson)
  
• Also, they list Felsch as being "worth" 50% more than Wagner and Bender.

Does anybody have copies of SCD between 2001 and 2005 that they could check?

Thanks!
Steve

[Leon]

here is 2002 shown as 1914 and 2004 shown as 1916 respectively

[gabrinus]

Thanks Leon.....that's interesting that the 2002 version just listed the General Baking checklist for the Mothers Bread cards while the 2004 version listed the Mothers Bread checklist...so in 2004 the Bressler was listed........Jerry

[Jobu]

Who put together the SCD checklist/book in 2004? Any author/contact info? Seems like we need to track that guy down.

Originally Posted by gabrinus

Thanks Leon.....that's interesting that the 2002 version just listed the General Baking checklist for the Mothers Bread cards while the 2004 version listed the Mothers Bread checklist...so in 2004 the Bressler was listed........Jerry

[brass_rat]

Originally Posted by Leon

here is 2002 shown as 1914 and 2004 shown as 1916 respectively

That's great -- thank, Leon!

Now I'm really interested to see what was in the 2003 edition.

This is what we call progress...

[Leon]

Originally Posted by brass_rat

That's great -- thank, Leon!

Now I'm really interested to see what was in the 2003 edition.

This is what we call progress...

I bought my first Krause SCD a little while after I first got back into the hobby in 1997. I don't have many others, 2000 doesn't list them. All it lists is the Stamped Back W514s with the Mothers Bread ad. Sorry, no 2003.


.

[ValKehl]

Hi Steve,
I meant to check my stockpile of SCD/Krause Standard Catalogs when I returned from FL in early February, but my Alzheimer's-like memory failed me again, until now. Yes, I do have the 2003 (12th Edition) Catalog, and below are scans of the D303 Mothers' Bread listing. This listing appears to be identical to the 2004 listing, except for the addition of Buck Weaver for 2004.

BTW, I would love to obtain a 1919 Mother's Bread strip card of WaJo, which just happens to be included in the scan below.
Best,
Val

[commishbob]

20th Edition (2011) has updated player list for the D303 (same descriptive paragraph as above post. The Mother's Bread though is listed as 1920-21

IMG.jpg

[Jobu]

I emailed SCD when this thread was last on the front page to see if they had notes on the checklist. They told me they did not have any info and that Bob Lemke was the compiler. Does anyone know what became of his research and notes when he passed away?

[brass_rat]

Almost a year later, thanks Val and Bob for posting those additional checklist scans.

I just wanted to bump this thread, as I am still looking for scans of Bressler and Lajoie! Just finding scans of them would make for a pretty great year for my 2019 collecting.

Cheers,
Steve

[Leon]

And I will bump it again to remind myself to check some other hobby references, as well as see if anyone else reading now, that didn't read it before, has any new info?

Originally Posted by brass_rat

Almost a year later, thanks Val and Bob for posting those additional checklist scans.

I just wanted to bump this thread, as I am still looking for scans of Bressler and Lajoie! Just finding scans of them would make for a pretty great year for my 2019 collecting.

Cheers,
Steve

[brass_rat]

I just wanted to bump this before the Texas show this weekend...

If you're chatting with friends or dealers and there's a pause in the conversation, don't be shy about bringing up this thread.

Perhaps some folks neighboring Louisiana might have some information...

[buymycards]

How much do we know about the W514 Mother's Bread cards?

I think there were several Mother's Bread business that were spread around the country. There was Mother's Bread in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1915, and in Indianapolis in the 1930's, and in Pittsburgh in 1904.

Were these W514 Mother's Bread cards issued by the same Mother's Bread company that issued the D303's in Louisiana?

PSA shows them as 1919-1921 and Krause shows them as 1920-21. The D303's say "Mothers'" and the W514's say "Mother's".

I doubt that the W514''s have anything to do with Louisiana, but I would like to hear other opinions.

Thanks, Rick

[ZachS]

Originally Posted by buymycards

Were these W514 Mother's Bread cards issued by the same Mother's Bread company that issued the D303's in Louisiana?

100% NO... completely different company.

[buymycards]

Originally Posted by ZachS

100% NO... completely different company.

Thanks, Zach

[brass_rat]

Two years later, Mulder and Scully (see post #1) are still looking for proof of the D303 Mothers' Bread Bressler and Lajoie...

[ahumes13]

Was just reading through this and would agree that it seems 1916 was the release date. Tinker was with the Whales in the Federal League in '14 and '15- but his Mothers' card lists him as Chicago Am. He became the Cub manager in '16. Whether it was confusion between which club he was managing or an error in print, it seems clear that it happened after the '15 season.

[RCMcKenzie]

I looked up Roy Hartzell's stats and realized that he is not "Topsy" Hartsel, so I've got that going for me.

Hartzell's last year in the majors was 1916. He played 33 games for New York...

[Leon]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

I looked up Roy Hartzell's stats and realized that he is not "Topsy" Hartsel, so I've got that going for me.

Hartzell's last year in the majors was 1916. He played 33 games for New York...

That is a beautiful card. These are really tough in nice shape.

[RCMcKenzie]

Thanks, Leon. Here's the only other MB card I have. I would like to add more in any grade. It's amazing how much info Steve has compiled on these. Is the Lajoie thought to be the portrait?

[brass_rat]

"Nearly one year" bump... . Still looking for proof of Bressler and Lajoie.

Sorry for not responding, Rob -- yes, the Lajoie (if it exists) should be the portrait with the "2b. Phila. Americans" caption.

[brass_rat]

As we move into fall, I’m still looking for Bressler and Lajoie. I’d love to confirm them for the set.

I’ve enjoyed re-reading this thread and welcome any more comments about D303 Mother’s’ Bread.

Steve

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by brass_rat

As we move into fall, I’m still looking for Bressler and Lajoie. I’d love to confirm them for the set.

I’ve enjoyed re-reading this thread and welcome any more comments about D303 Mother’s’ Bread.

Steve

Are any of those blank back t216/d303 available with either if those 2?

[brass_rat]

I'm not aware of any blank back Lajoie portrait, but I'll admit I don't follow those closely.

Bressler isn't in any of the related sets, and this leads me to believe that his card actually exists. In post #4 I detail more about why I think it exists and which picture I think is on the front (Hooks Wiltse).

[brass_rat]

I listed the D303 Mothers' Bread Bressler and Lajoie as my "white whales" in the recent thread.

Just wanted to give this thread a one-year bump in case anyone might have a lead that could confirm the existence of these two cards.

Posts 4 and 7 detail my prediction regarding the Bressler card.

[Casey2296]

Thanks for the bump Steve, great info and beautiful cards.