Colgan's "proofs"

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Posted By: Millerhouse

At risk of bursting a bubble from a poster in the recent auctions acquisition thread, I firmly believe that the thin, square black & white cards bearing the same photos as the round Colgan's Chips are not, in fact, proof cards of any kind but are, instead, a separate set from an unknown issuer utilizing the same photos as Colgan's. My reasons for believing this are many.

First, they are simply available in far more collectible quantities than acknowledged proof cards. Over the years, I have been able to amass 75 different (and a fair number of duplicates) from a number of different sources.

Second, they have been checklisted as a separate set for more than thirty-five years. My recollection is that Egan's seminal checklist book on pre-war candy and gum cards from the late '60s included them as a separate issue. While this is far from conclusive, the fact that someone nearly forty years ago was able to track them down in the sort of quantity that I've managed to acquire since then suggests that they are available from varied, publicly available sources, unlike the typical proofs that have appeared in large batches from single sources.

Finally, and to me the clincher, the so-called proofs, at times, depict less than what is included on the Colgan's cards and frequently depict the bust shots of the players with the same sort of rounding occasioned by the shape of the Colgan's. This suggests to me that these are not the precursor of the round cards -- and, hence, proofs for the round Colgan's -- but that, instead, the pictures used on these square cards were taken from the Colgan's cards.

Because they contain no identifiers other than the names of the players, we may never know the source of them. However, the suggestion that they are E254 "proofs" just doesn't hold up. I suspect that they were issued as inserts on their own by an issuer using Colgan's images. And, for want of a better term, I think they're more appropriately referred to "square 'Colgan's.'"

I'd be most interested in hearing the views of others on this.

Dan