I was reading up on 1966 James T Elder Postcards while working on my Twins team checklists, and came across a question I'm hoping someone can help me with. Trading Card DB has a set listing for the
1966 James T Elder Postcards series which is where I first learned that these are out there. That led me to do further investigation to try to find out if the postcards were numbered or not, and I came across
Keyman Collectible's set listing, which is also labeled as 1966 James T Elder Postcards.
From here though it gets a little murky. In the description of the listing, Keyman shares some background on on who Jim Rowe is (the photographer of the pictures for the postcards) and who James T Elder is (a dealer that distributed the postcards via mail order). Where I get confused is when Keyman discusses the numbering on the back of the cards - as I understand it, James T Elder added a number stamp on the back of the postcards for cataloging purposes. However, further in Keyman's description, they show some pictures of postcards labeled as either Jim Rowe, or James T Elder. There are a few visible differences between the two:
- Jim Rowe postcards have no catalog number on the back whereas James T Elder postcards do
- Jim Rowe postcards are full bleed images/no borders and no player signature, whereas James T Elder has both borders and signatures
In comparing this to a handful of the images in TCDB's gallery, though, there is a mix - they are labeled as James T Elder, have borders and no player signature, but do not have a catalog number stamped on the back.
Through all of that, I'm a little confused of what exists. If I'm understanding the history correctly, it seems like Jim Rowe produced the postcards, and they were then distributed by James T Elder (and got a catalog stamp added at that time). But that also doesn't seem quite right based on the images on the Keyman set description
I'm hoping someone can help shed some light on if there are multiple versions of these postcards that exist, or what I should include/how I should label these cards in my personal catalog. I tried to do some research on this myself, but there doesn't appear to be a whole lot out there. I did come across
this thread on the forums from a few years ago which is very interesting, but does not answer my questions about the set itself. Appreciate any info you may have to share!