[nolemmings]

Thanks guys. Oddly enough, I cannot seem to find an ad announcing the beginning of the promotion, even though Everybody's had plenty of half-page and full page ads in the days preceding the first giveaway.

MarkMac, almost all of the documented cards are from series 2, i.e., card #s 21-40. Therefore the various backs were all printed within the same series. My working theory is more in line with the lazy typesetter. The many examples that were auctioned together some few years ago were almost all from series 2, which led me to suspect that Everybody's was distributed in groups of 20 like Sporting News and others. Incidentally and curiously, I have never seen one player with two or more different backs.

MarkMarv, I tend to agree with Leon on this-- the "E's" are the giveaway. Your scans actually show two type 1's-- the most prevalent type- with an inking issue on one apostrophe, IMO. There should be only one "thick" lettered variation. I will post the four types separately. I have tracked 58 of the cards and the only ones with noticeable differences in apostrophe within type 1 are found on cards of Cheney and Cravath, and these are minor. I believe there are likely inking anomalies rather than typesetting differences. True there are other differences in apostrophe among the other types, and I use one as an identifier, but the location of the arms and bars on the letter "E" and their serifs are the main points of difference, or should I say, if you only had one card and you had to pin it down, I would rather focus on the E than the '.