Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew H
I like the way you think Cy, but don't forget, the 0-number series includes other athletes and boxers... That numbering system doesn't really help baseball subject collecting IMO. I also don't see a good reason to renumber a 2500+ card set just because a few have a number at the top. And lastly, coming from a struggling collector  , trying to break the set down by year makes collecting the set too difficult. I personally like the way it is, it's not hard I figure out what year a card was first produced, and whether or not it was produced other years. (using the OJ bible, of course)
I'll also add that there is a zero-number checklist in the back of the book. |
Matt,
Just to respond to a couple of your points... I just looked at the Appendix of the OJ book and see that the checklist is back there... thanks, I hadn't even realized it. Great work from the book authors.
If you look at that list, the boxers are at the beginning of the list, from 0-34. But also there are baseball cards with those same numbers - the King Kelly cards, and also the Browns Champs.
As such, you can see that if you replace the boxers with the King Kelly and Browns Champs, the "checklist" is really for all the 1887 baseball cards. The 1887 set comprises of the entire NL, plus the AA champs of St. Louis, and additionally Brooklyn.
I can only imagine that since Brooklyn was based in New York, the OJ producers felt compelled to include them. They may have later received complaints that the New York Mets were excluded, hence the limited run of the spotted ties. Just a hypothesis.
But either way, you can see that the 1887 OJ's really are their own set with their own numbers, since it seems that every pose was given a number (excluding the rare spotted tie series).