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fkwHi, I have a few of the 1921 Herpolsheimer cards, they are authentic. They are in my opinion more related to the 1920 D327 set (Holsum Bread), and not exactly the E135 or E121 set. They have print font like the E121's but the players seen in the set lean towards a mixture of players from E135 and E121 (W575-1). The 1920 Holsum Bread set is newly checlisted in the 2005 SCD (12 reported so far) but there is a card of Bodie (Wash) pictured on page 171, and there are also at least 3 known Chicago Black Sox players in the Holsum set (Cicotte, Jackson, Williams), all not found in the E121. By the way Ping Bodie never played for Washington, it is just an error.
The first auctions the seller listed said that he had 69 total Herpolsheimer cards from the consignor, with no dups. And if I remember right I thought the first auctions (or seller email replies) said something about the cards originally coming from a family with a Herpolshiemer connection.
My thinking is the 1921 Herpolsheimer cards were never issued in a normal fashion. They may have been printed in small quantities as a demo that wasnt picked up by the company, then eventually fell into a single collection maybe given to a kid who later tried to sell them at a 70's garage sale (The pencil mark prices found on many of the cards backs). Frank