Revisiting the 1910 PC805 Novelty Cutlery Postcard set.

[rickalaska]

Originally Posted by Baseball Rarities

Show me one card with a postmark before 1910. Novelty Cutlery postcards are not that rare to where a single example should not exist. Same goes for the PC796 Sepia series.

What year do you think that the PC796 Series (which has the exact same subjects and exact same images) was issued?

It would make no sense for Novelty Cutlery to make a card of Speaker in 1908. He was not even on the team until the end of the year, played in only 31 games and hit a paltry .224.

When did Hal Chase and Art Devlin play together? Hal Chase only played one year for the New York Giants - 1919.

How do you explain the inclusion of pitcher Sam Frock? He played in 5 games in 1907, none in 1908 and eight in 1909. 1910 was his big year - he pitched in 46 games.

Some of the images used for the cards are from 1907 or maybe even earlier, but I do not think that they were produced until 1910.

The set is rare - PSA and SGC have graded a total of 186 Novelty Cutlery postcards(93 cards each), many of those were likely crossovers, so the total number would be smaller. There are only a handful of each player known. The most cards graded of any one player by PSA is 7 and the most by SGC is 6, so the populations are very low.

I have only seen three or four examples with postmarks - 1911 is the earliest. I own one dated 1923, so, not everyone mailed the card as soon as they got it - they were collectibles. It's now 110 years later and I still haven't mailed my cards.

If this 25-card set was all produced in the same year (1910), why would the printer use just "last names" on some cards and "full names" on other, backgrounds on some cards and no backgrounds on others? Again, how does Walter "Johnston" (Johnson) and "Honas" (Honus) Wagner get misspelled in 1910? ** Why did the printer choose to represent both the 1908 and the 1909 World Series on different cards (the dual player cards)? **

TRIS SPEAKER - he may have only played 31 games in 1908, but then why would the printer choose SAM FROCK who only pitched 2 innings for Pittsburg in 1910 - was then traded to the Boston Doves and had a losing record? FROCK's best years were in the minors in 1907-08 when he won 23 and 24 games respectively. Sometimes reputation precedes a player and the card printers take a chance on a Rookie - as I recall, SPEAKER turned out to be pretty good.

You are right - Hal Chase was with the NY Highlanders during the time Devlin was with the NY Giants.

The images were clearly taken before 1910 (e.g., 1907 Cobb, 1908 Speaker), so how can anyone conclusively say that the set was printed and distributed in 1910...? The only argument seems to be that there are no early postmarks - this may just tell you how collectible the set was and still is. The 1907-09 designation is clearly the better choice.