N284 Buchner Gold Coin Set
 

I am doing some research and am trying to determine if all of the N284 Buchner Gold Coin cards were in fact issued in 1887? If anyone has studied this set and can provide details, it would be most appreciated.

Phil, I'm working on this set and am over halfway finished. According to the Lipset guide all the cards have an 1887 copyright, although I have some that do not have a copyright date. I don't know if the backs are maybe just worn.

I have not gone through and checked all the teams to see if they match up with 1887 for a particular player, but for example, McCormick was only on Pitt in 1887 and is pictured as Pitt. I am not very familiar with all the jockey's and actors and all that, which are really also part of the set. Here are some examples, including one of the checklist additions that Jeff discovered, Mickey Welch. I consider it an n284, I wouldn't know what else to call it... Rob

Thanks for the info and pics, Rob, very helpful.

N284 cards
 

Hi Phil

When I had a bunch of N284 cards, I did some homework on the players. There are quite a number of "rookies" featured in
this set whose careers started in the Spring of 1887. My guess is that these cards were issued either sometime in late 1887
or perhaps in early 1888. I will have to find my records to see what I have come up with regarding their date.


My two remaining N284 cards...…

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...obinson50x.jpg . https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...MetsN284xx.jpg



TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Thanks for the insight, Ted. If you can check your notes for me, that would be great. My primary reason for asking is that with the Allen & Ginter and Goodwin sets being issued in 1888 and many of the N172’s not being issued for the first time until 1888 or later, the Buchner set being definitively dated as 1887 would make it the sole rookie card for some key players such as Cap Anson.

Pretty artwork

It looks like they used two different printers/lithographers to produce the N284 series. Donaldson Brothers printed the copyright date of 1887; Giles Litho & Liberty Printing did not. There's a possibility that they did not print concurrently. There's also a possibility that one printed a specific group of players and the other another group. Has anyone compiled a player checklist by printer or have an example of one player printed by both companies?

Jeff

I have never noticed the different lithography companies before. Looking at a few cards I count 3 different companies so far: Julius Bien & Co. Litho NY, Giles Litho & Liberty printing, and Donaldson. The Thompson does not seem to have a copyright and is a Giles back. Von der ahe is the Julius Bien back. I'll make some more scans of other cards this weekend. Maybe n284 should be sub-classified by back type and/or Lithography Co. I made some close-up scans that do not fit this page, so I did not include them here. I'll try to resize them tomorrow. The backs are difficult to read without magnification for me.
Note the McCormick is a Giles back with an 1887 copyright.

I've always enjoyed this set - here's a few favorites I have, all with the Donaldson Printer back

Ok, so we have 3 printers and apparently 3 different back types. Anyone have access to the complete checklist on pp 400-403 of the WTI Vol IV? I've attached the series overview from the Forbes & Mitchell guide below.

Jeff

I haven't checked my cards, yet, but, was looking around on eBay. ChampsandBums has a type of police captain series that has "Ballin & Liebler Lith N.Y." "Copyrighted 1888". They have a second police capt. design that says Julius Bien copyright 1887. The actors and jockeys I looked at had the Julius Bien trademark and 1887, which puts the van der ahe in that sub-type of cards, unless someone has a Van der ahe without a Jules Bien back. I'll post some more tomorrow. (pic from champsandbums ebay listing)(actor pic is one I lifted a while back off of an ebay listing, not my card, for reference purposes...)

I only have the non-sport guide, the SCD, and Lipset checklists. Would also like to see a full checklist. Although at least one of the police card types were made in 1888 and still reference baseball on the back, I don't know if the baseball cards were also continuously released after 1887 or not, but it seems they may have been. Rob

One key question for rookie card purposes, if the N284's were available for a second year, during 1888, were there any players that were never issued during 1887 and became available for the first time in 1888?

I'm working on a detailed inventory of what I have. I believe I'm seeing that each subject has one specific back. The Curt Welch St. Louis I have has a Julius Bien back (Jockeys and Actors), like the Von Der Ahe St. louis. I think the cards that are made by Donaldson Bros and Giles are specific to the fronts, in other words, if you have a card with a Giles back like Ferguson Phila, all of the Ferguson Phila cards will have a Giles Leading Baseball back.

I have not found a baseball subject with anything other than 1887 or blank. My thinking is that the cards could say "1887" on the back, while they were still being distributed a year or more later. Diamond Stars have a 1934 copyright, even though we know from the bio backs that they are 1934-1936.

I'll post more later. Rob

On Rookies
 

Phil, a quick follow-up to your question about rookies in the Buchner set. I think you can call the Buchner baseball cards 1887. Anson was 35 in 1887, so I wouldn't really consider it his rookie card, although it may be his first appearance in a somewhat major issue. I'm sure there may be some true rookies in the set, but it would take some research.

N284 cards
 

Phil
I checked out my research on the 39 cards I once had. I did not come up with any evidence to indicate that any of these N284 subjects (based
on their team identification) would have been printed & issued in 1888. Of course, this sample is only 28 % of this set's total number of cards.
However, normal probability suggests I would've found at least one guy (out of 39) whose team/timeline could have been 1888....which would
discount the N284 set of cards as a "rookie source".

Furthermore, what complicates this matter are the 3 different Lithograph printers that produced these cards. It may be tough to make the case
that the N284 Anson (or other famous HOFers of that era in this set) are their true rookie cards.

If these cards had bios printed on their backs (like T205's) they would provide us a certain timeline. Regarding a timeline, my guess is the N284
cards were printed & issued circa Fall 1887.

Anyhow, I haven't given up on this set, yet. I will continue studying the team/timeline factor for the remaining 100+ subjects in this set.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Great, thanks for all of your help and efforts, guys!

picked up a Gold Coin baseball a week or so ago.

Danny Richardson - PSA 2

nice artwork on those cards !

Three different Issues?
 

Doesn't this "set" consist of three different and distinct issues? The Browns were probably issued in 1887 following their 1886 championship. The two others are the generic poses (same pose for each position) and the non-generic poses (where the picture might actually look like the player). The latter two sets could have been printed in 1887 or 1888.

I am traveling and unable to check the backs in my collection, but do the different printers correspond to the different sets?

Thanks for chiming in on this point. I've been trying to figure out a pattern, but so far it just gets more confusing. I thought I was going to see all of the Browns' cards with the Julius Bien back that reads "actors & jockeys". Lipset calls this set Type 2 or Type B, Browns Champions. I have a Barkley with "Fire Chiefs" back. The card is miscut, so no Litho i.d. is present. Usually, the fire chief backs are by Donaldson and are found in Lipset's type A and Type C sets. I generally like to group cards by the backs, which makes the N284 set very confusing to me. I will continue to study it and post more as I learn more. So far, I have not found a front with multiple backs...Rob

more scans
 

Here are some more scans of the subset "A" series of generic images. Note the different backs. Some have similar, but not exactly the same backgrounds, some have completely different...More later this week. If anyone wants to post front/back scans, it will help with the survey.

Keefe and Welch
 

The Keefe Scott posted in post #9 looks like it has the blue print back. The one I have has the darker colored ink, so, we know cards with the blue ink can be found with the black ink. Backs and Litho companies are the same though. The Welch looks like it belongs in n284, as shown...

I collect only Washington players. Here's what I have - hope these are helpful to those doing research:

- The first one - Farrell (with ball in left hand) - is a Donaldson with the Police Inspectors back.
- The next 3 - Craig (sic Crane), Farrell (with ball in both hands), & Hines (batter) - are Donaldsons with the "regular" Base-Ball Players backs.
- The last 8 - Carroll, Dailey, Donnelly, Gilligan, Hines (centre field), Myers, O'Brien, & Whitney - are Giles & Liberty with the "regular" Base-Ball Players backs.

As best as I can determine with a magnifier, all of these cards show an 1887 copyright date.

Here are the last 3 cards that didn't make it into my previous post:

Thank you, Val, for posting those, great cards. I've been thinking out loud in this thread, and learning as I go. I can't believe how much information Lipset was able to gather for his guide pre-internet.

I will scan and post my Washington cards tomorrow, and lay out the backs, with my opinion on how I would group them. Even if you only have have a N284 as a type card, it would help if you posted it here. Thanks, Rob

A mix of N284 sub-set examples.

Jeff

Asking because I'm a noob on sets like this.

Do the actors and police captains cards have more value being part of this set than they would if they were a complete non-sport set of their own?

Here's my two cents. The non-player cards in this set get their value from being a Buchner issue. Buchner cards regardless of series command a premium over most other card issuers.

Jeff

Here's another of Brogan, though the card & image looks different then Jeff's example

https://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/8153484001.jpg

Jay,

The police captains were issued both with and without the brand name at top.

You can find a gallery of many N284 police captains at the below link.

http://www.non-sport.com/sets/7564

Once on the page, the below arrow shows you where to click to see the gallery.

Jeff

Buchner Gold Coin
 

Okay, here's what I've found...

There are 3 different back types, 5 different backs including litho companys.

I'll call them
A1 Leading Baseball Players- Giles & Liberty
A2 Leading Baseball Players- Donaldson Bros.
B Police, baseball, actors, jockeys - Julius Bien
C Police, baseball, actors, jockeys, chiefs of fire depts- Donaldson Bros
C2 " " -Ballin 1888

A1 Giles is only found in the "generic subset"
A2 Donaldson is only found in Lipset's "all the rest subset, or like images"
B Only found on most Browns cards, and actors and Jockeys and captains
C Found in all 3 of Lipset's subsets
D Only found on "type 2" Police captains

Here is the checklist coded by back so far. I'll post scans that I made later on.

St. Louis Browns
 

Note that the front of the Browns cards with the "Chiefs of Fire Dept." backs are a little different than the Julius Bien backs. The shirts are a different shade of brownish-red.
The Van der ahe looks like the actors and jockeys with this same back, Julius Bien. I've sorted and grouped my cards by back. I still think the 3 traditional subsets are interesting, however I am no longer classifying my collection that way.

Here are some more scans by back. The Giles cards are the ones that give the Buchner cards a bad rap for being too generic. As many of you have mentioned, the artwork on the Donaldson cards is really good, although they also made some generic looking ones.

So’ what is the price range for the Baseball players in this set. Thanks in advance. Joe

Over the years I read posts with various explanation for the common blank backs that show up in this set ranging from skinned to cut from an advertising poster. Is there a clear idea of why they are blank backed?

I have several that do not appear to "skinned" nor hand cut?

Of the 70 or so cards I have, about 10 are blank. I assume they are skinned. I have a couple of Mets cards that are thicker and may be from a Mets poster-type display as I have heard other collectors talk about thicker blank backed Mets cards. I do have Mets cards with the Donaldson printed backs. The poster-type "Block letters on front" usually have printed backs. Ballpark pricing Commons 150-300, stars 300-600, hofers 750-1200.

Willie Haight had a pretty good run on this set.

Jeff

Rob now that I pulled my five to look them over I am embassed to say that it is obvious that they were skinned. My Flint card still has the remnants of "ack" located exactly where pack resides.

Thanks for the feedback on the blank backs, Mike. My opinion has evolved on the blank backs, the more I see them with varying layers, the more I think they are all skinned from wear or scrapbook removal.

Jeff, you probably saw the Willie Haight cards in the thread over on the non-sport board. I linked to it in a Buchner thread a month or so ago. His stamp appears often on the Buchners. I only have one with his stamp.

While on the topic of Buchners, has anyone ever tried to piece together all the cards with the "block lettering" fronts, in order to determine what it said? I think that would be interesting to try. Here's mine:

Image borrowed from the pre-war cards site. I have also seen the word "tobacco" on another partial example.

Jeff

Here's a more complete picture of the advertising sign.

Jeff

Thank you, Jeff!! I wondered if it might have been done, already. Really cool!!

I have only the one but have always loved it...

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...frostfront.jpg

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...rostback-1.jpg

There must have been at least one other version of that advertising sign. If you try to place the players in the sign I provided, they are different.

Jeff

Agreed. I noticed that.

Adding my two to bump this back to the top for some more additions - Thompson (black back) and Kelly (blue back).

nice cards.....

Block Letter cards
 

Thanks, Leon. Nice ones, Bryan.

I noticed that BrianMc has a Gillespie in bst with block lettering that has different letter markings from the one I have. Mine is the first one posted on the left side.

The Anson in Post 44 would replace a card with the 'WING' of CHEWING at the top on the sheet layout.
Yours looks like the bottom half of THE on the top and CO on the bottom. Which doesn't match any of the other patterns on the known layout. So it must be from a different sheet altogether. Could be a factory scrap based on the much lighter color of the black overprint letters.