Does a T222 Fatima numbered checklist exist for all known cards?

[Spike]

The 1914 T222 Fatima set includes 52 baseball players, 4 athletes, and 7 known photoplay (movie) stars. Most cards show a small number in the lower left corner near their name, as shown on the attached Wally Schang. This handwritten number can be black, white, or grey, and takes close inspection to verify, since most online scans fail to show enough fine detail.

Anyone use an existing checklist for on-card numbers? It's such a scarce set that few complete versions exist, so checking across multiple collections should give us more confidence. From my own work so far, each group includes four cards.

NNO baseball (4 : Burns, Chalmers, Marquard, Perdue)
#2 - 9 baseball (4 each)
#10 track and field athletes (4, rare)
#11 Pathé photoplay stars (4, rare)
#12 - 15 baseball (4 each, rare)
NNO Pathé / Universal photoplay stars (4 each, assuming another Universal card is found, rare)

It's likely one more unnumbered Universal photoplay star exists, since that "completes" them at four. Pathé's four photoplay stars appear to be the sole group printed with and without numbers, implying (at least) two print runs.

Before I spent more hours squinting at scans, any other checklist already accepted for these numbers?

[x2drich2000]

OldCardboard's checklist provides the card numbers as well. https://www.oldcardboard.com/t/t222/t222list.asp. If I'm understanding you correctly and I didn't check my set for accuracy, it is not consistant at 4 players per number. #15 has 6 players (Henry, Johnson, Lelivelt, Lobert, S. Magee & Smith). Likewise, #13 only has 2 players (Baumgardner & Hamilton).

[Spike]

Thanks, I'd missed that list from OC! I agree with the majority of it. Checked a few against decent scans for others that differed from some initial work and found some corrections, with examples attached: Saier is 9 (twice, one white and then grey), Lobert is 13 (not 15), and Tyler is 9 (not 4).

I suspect OC was as human as the rest of us and misread (or miscopied) some numbers when organizing them. T222 has just the kind of printing to make fine details tough on the human eye. The good news is that OC's list speeds up the process of checking specific numbers.

P.S. Moviecard.com shows Florence Lawrence as the 8th photoplay star, possibly completing the set checklist at 64.

[x2drich2000]

I think you are right on the OC list being off for whatever reason and maybe there is something with the 4 per number. I just checked my Smith as well and it is a 13 instead of 15 as well.

This is the original OC list counts by number. If we move Lobert and Smith from 15 to 13. You get 4 for both 13 and 15 as well. I could see #2 and #7, which seems to be the biggest differences, getting mixed up as well. So are there 3 more cards labeled as #7 that are actually #2?


I'm probably not going to be able to check this weekend, but if you need me to check any specific players under a loupe, let me know.

[Spike]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

I think you are right on the OC list being off for whatever reason and maybe there is something with the 4 per number. I just checked my Smith as well and it is a 13 instead of 15 as well.

This is the original OC list counts by number. If we move Lobert and Smith from 15 to 13. You get 4 for both 13 and 15 as well. I could see #2 and #7, which seems to be the biggest differences, getting mixed up as well. So are there 3 more cards labeled as #7 that are actually #2?


I'm probably not going to be able to check this weekend, but if you need me to check any specific players under a loupe, let me know.

Thanks, I discovered that VCP’s gallery for T222 included enough detail to validate the remaining numbers, so are complete at 64 images, all in groups of four. There are 12 total cards that lack numbered versions, 4 baseball and 8 photoplay, hinting that each print sheet contained 12 cards. That kind of detail will take additional work, with success TBD.

[Spike]

Validated checklist for T222 numbers across all 64 known cards as 16 groups of four: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Initial analysis of miscut pictures suggest that numbered groups were printed side-by-side (ex: #8 Ivey Wingo to left of #8 Boardwalk Brown). Since the 12 cards known with NNO (no number on front) are four baseball and eight photoplay stars, this could mean sheet size was 3x4, with 12 cards per sheet. If true, surviving numbers of each group of 12 cards would be similar, assuming similar distribution across cigarette packs. (There's an excellent chance Fatima also provided specific T222 cards by mail-in request, as they offered many other premiums via mail-in redemption.)

While the whole set is scarce, one can rank them in scarcity from challenging to unique. (NNO and numbered photoplay stars aren't distinguished on pop reports, so this estimation includes my own inspection of scans from online galleries and trasactions to compare those groups.)

Easiest: NNO baseball and #2-9 baseball (4 cards each). Pop reports contain 10+ for common players and somewhat more for stars.
Harder: #10 (Athletes) #11 (numbered Pathé actors), #12-15 baseball
Toughest: NNO Universal and Pathé actors (some are unique)

Let's say Fatima printed an initial quantity of NNO baseball with the tougher NNO photoplay stars on one sheet (12 cards total). The company might've later "reprinted" their four NNO baseball players on another sheet with baseball groups #2 and #3 in larger quantities. The reappearance of the #11 Pathé group could reflect that company asking Fatima to promote those actors. Potential print sheets could be three groups at a time.

Possible 12-card sheets:
NNO baseball and Pathé / Universal photoplay stars
NNO baseball #2 - #3 baseball
#4 #5 #6 baseball
#7 #8 #9 baseball
#10 athletes #11 Pathé #12 baseball
#13 #14 #15 baseball

If card distribution and survival reflects the kind of patterns seen in other tobacco sets, with stars found today in greater quantities relative to commons, those proposed sheet groupings would match the known subjects and relative pop counts and would also imply Fatima's "100 cards" was aspirational and they decided to stop well short of that amount. Perhaps the overall expense of printing these photo sheets proved more than it was worth as a marketing tool.

While Fatima advertised in newspapers and magazines regularly during 1914, I've yet to find a mention of these cards. This might mean they printed them during an extremely narrow window of time (April/May 1914?) and pulled the plug before they became a broader story for that brand.

[Spike]

Now that we have a T222 checklist in groups of four, I'd love to learn how Liggett & Myers tobacco helped customers make coupon exchanges, since that should tell us more about set distribution. The backs of T222 encourage customers to look for that info.

It's easy enough to find Liggett & Myers catalogs from 1914-16-17 online. I've been unable to find any from 1922, at least so far. Anyone here seen a Leggitt & Myers 1922 coupon exchange catalog? They could look a lot like this earier edition.