Looking for proof (D303 Mothers' Bread)

[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]

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