Help With Uncle Jack's Cards -- Variations

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Posted By: RobertS

According to the SCD big book, Uncle Jack's candy cards (1933, R317) come in red or blue duotone. OldCardboard.com correctly adds purple to the list.

I recently picked up a green one (an unlisted color) -- but noticed that many of the green, purple and red cards exhibit different qualities than the blue ones I've seen -- particularly in terms of card thickness and presence of a border around the image.

Here is a blue one I acquired over a year ago (note that there is no border around the image):


Here is the new green one -- it appears to have a border around the image and the quality of the photo is a bit rougher (and the player name slightly harder to read). It also appears to be bigger by 1/8 of an inch and the card stock seems slightly different -- thicker and very slightly yellower (although my scan made it seem yellower than it actually is).


Here is another green one taken from Brian Lindholme's Web site, which also appears to exhibit the same qualities as my new green one:


This purple one from Huggins and Scott Auctions also has a border (easiest to see around the name panel):


Lastly, this red one from Leon's site also seems to have a border and appears to be of the thicker variety (note thickness of cardboard on the worn corners):


Any help is appreciated.

Were the blue one printed first? Were cards like my green one printed later in the Old Jack's print run, perhaps taken from the blue images? This could explain the very slightly rougher image quality of some of these cards (seemingly a slightly larger print dot pattern).
Were these cards ever reprinted (not the homemade eBay jobs, but by a dealer or manufacturer)?

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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.

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Posted By: leon

I think I have a green one at home but need to double check. All UJ's I have seen have been on heavy stock.
regards