Proposed Old Judge Reorganization

[cyseymour]

Joe,

Any insight into why 1887 was divided into the Short Number set and the Zero set?

Also, do you think that, seeing that "n172" is only supposed to encompass baseball, 1887 OJ's could be broken into a baseball set since there are 575 baseball poses (excluding Willie Hahm) and the Zero set goes to 575? I am detecting some symmetry there...

Thanks

[Joe_G.]

Originally Posted by cyseymour

Joe,

Any insight into why 1887 was divided into the Short Number set and the Zero set?

Also, do you think that, seeing that "n172" is only supposed to encompass baseball, 1887 OJ's could be broken into a baseball set since there are 575 baseball poses (excluding Willie Hahm) and the Zero set goes to 575? I am detecting some symmetry there...

Thanks

Not entirely sure I understand your question or if my answer provides anything Jay hasn't already shared. At any rate, there are 32 different short numbered baseball poses w/ McCormick enjoying some re-issued poses with team update (Pittsburgh). The zero numbered baseball subjects start at "032" which I believe to be purely coincidental w.r.t. there being 32 different short number baseball poses. The zero numbered cards have many missing numbers between "032" and "0575", most of them being in the Brooklyn grouping (highest numbers).

I believe Goodwin & Co. did a fine job assigning numbers in 1887 but by the time 1888 rolled around, the scope of the set more than doubled with full coverage of all NL, AA, and WA teams. There was a lot of player movement and the cards design was somewhat simplified. No more careful placement of the "Old Judge Cigarettes" banner in the photo area, no more number.

Going back to the 1886/1887 issue, I do believe there was overlap amongst the script, short number, and "0" numbered cards. Some of the surviving uncut sheets suggest this. Some script cards are more common than others. For example, the poses that can be found in both Ay and Ax formats are typically a bit more common with what I suspect was an early (Ay) and a later (Ax) production date. All of the Spotted Ties are of the Ay (early) format while others such as the script cards of Roger Connor can be found with both and show up more frequently than any of the Spotted Ties.

A careful read of the Old Judge book should make good sense of all this and more.

[Joe_G.]

Originally Posted by cyseymour

Joe,

Any insight into why 1887 was divided into the Short Number set and the Zero set?

Also, do you think that, seeing that "n172" is only supposed to encompass baseball, 1887 OJ's could be broken into a baseball set since there are 575 baseball poses (excluding Willie Hahm) and the Zero set goes to 575? I am detecting some symmetry there...

Thanks

My response above may have been the result of me over-thinking your question.

If your question is simply why are there different sets from late 1886 & 1887 then the answer is a bit different. It is clear from the player and team combinations found within the 1886-1887 issues that the script cards (Ay examples in particular) pre-date the numbered cards and that the short numbered pre-date the "0" numbered. It is possible that the Baseball card issue was re-scoped several times over late 1886-1887. As more baseball negatives arrived from various studios such as Gray Studio, the card maker/producer had decisions to make. For example, how would the cards be organized and mass produced? It is possible, perhaps likely, that the studio(s) responsible for making the cards for Goodwin and Co. changed during 1887. It may have taken multiple studios to meet the demand for the baseball card inserts. All of these scenarios could help explain the many differences during late 1886-1887. Not only the script vs short number vs "0" number, but Type A vs Type B "0" number, Brooklyn minis and the many other variations (Ay & Ax script cards, missing numbers on cards that should have them, cards with and without copyrights, etc.). In the absence of proof, we can only speculate why the separate issues and the many variations.

[cyseymour]

Joe, thank you very much for your extensive and interesting answers. I'll need to go back and study the book to better understand all the details of the printing, but from a collector's perspective, on a purely practical level - do you like the idea of dividing OJ's into 1887, 88 and 89 (86 and maybe 90, even), for the sake of set registry's, pop reports, things like that?

Point being that while the differences in the subsets is all very interesting, the set could still largely be broken into 1887, 1888, and 1889 cards comprising of three different sets, and that for the 1887's, it would be fairly easy to track them by the number that actually appears on the card, even if you were combining the Zero and Short series print runs into a larger 1887 baseball set.

Thanks

[Joe_G.]

Personally, I would support breaking the set into the following:

N172-1 = 1886-1887 Script
N172-2 = 1887 Short Number
N172-3A & 3B = 1887 "0" Number (A & B referring to the type)
N172-4 = 1888 Fa
N172-5 = 1888 Fb
N172-6 = 1889
N172-7 = 1890

In each case, I would order the cards in alphabetical order. I do collect the 28 sequential "0" numbers from 0481 to 0508 as these represent the Detroit Wolverines. One might expect me to like the idea of ordering them as Goodwin did; but not the case. I would like to see the cards in alphabetical order for consistency.

So my beloved NL Detroit Wolverines would all fall under N172-3A and N172-5 (with a small number of re-issues showing up as N172-4)

An alternate naming convention could be as follows (non-conventional naming, but easier for those of us who have studied the set for many years):

N172 Script
N172 Short Number
N172 "0" Number
N172 Fa
N172 Fb
N172 Fc
N172 Fc NL/PL

I'm also OK leaving it as just N172

[cyseymour]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

Personally, I would support breaking the set into the following:

N172-1 = 1886-1887 Script
N172-2 = 1887 Short Number
N172-3A & 3B = 1887 "0" Number (A & B referring to the type)
N172-4 = 1888 Fa
N172-5 = 1888 Fb
N172-6 = 1889
N172-7 = 1890

In each case, I would order the cards in alphabetical order. I do collect the 28 sequential "0" numbers from 0481 to 0508 as these represent the Detroit Wolverines. One might expect me to like the idea of ordering them as Goodwin did; but not the case. I would like to see the cards in alphabetical order for consistency.

So my beloved NL Detroit Wolverines would all fall under N172-3A and N172-5 (with a small number of re-issues showing up as N172-4)

An alternate naming convention could be as follows (non-conventional naming, but easier for those of us who have studied the set for many years):

N172 Script
N172 Short Number
N172 "0" Number
N172 Fa
N172 Fb
N172 Fc
N172 Fc NL/PL

I'm also OK leaving it as just N172

Joe, thank you for your response. I'm hearing what you're saying about the complexity of the set and the many different sub-types. First question is: theoretically, if you chose to break the 1887 into Short and "0" Number subsets, would you recategorize the boxers, celebrities, actors and actresses as n172's? Because they are currently n171's and n174's. And what would be the harm in combining the "O" and Short Series into an umbrella 1887 baseball set? Isn't that why most series are called "series" and not "sets", because the series is contained within the set?

I hear what you're saying about alphabetical order being more consistent, but then there is the problem that because they are alphabetical, the grading companies fail to distinguish between poses, while if they were categorized by numbers, the poses would be automatically recorded as the pop report would report the number of the card.

Another problem with alphabetical, remember, is then you have to create an entirely new numbering system apart from what is already on the card, and the convenience of knowing the number by looking at the card is lost. So I'm not sure whether making it alphabetical and creating a new numbering system really makes things more simple as opposed to more confusing?

Also, what you're suggesting is a rather either/or scenario between the two extremes of categorizing everything according to the smallest detail, or lumping everything together under the moniker of "n172". Either way, it makes it almost impossible to get a set together, because getting every n172 card is basically impossible, but also breaking everything down by subset makes collecting each subset a near impossibility (for instance, 1888 Fa and Fb). Why not just combine things like Fa and Fb into an umbrella "1888" so collectors can include both of them in an 1888 set and therefore make it more attainable?

Thanks

J

[Joe_G.]

Many different options. I can see the benefit of listing by year, throwing all the various types from that year together, perhaps as follows:

1886-87 Script
1887 Numbered (includes short number & both type A & B long /"0" numbered)
1888 (both Fa & Fb)
1889 (Fc)
1890 (Fc NL/PL)

Maybe even just call the Script 1886 to avoid overlapping with the numbered cards even though some script cards absolutely date to 1887.

No strong opinion on the N171 and N174 issues. They deserve to be split up just like the baseball cards above, but I don't much like the idea of trying to list all the Fb actress cards to join the baseball cards. By 1888, I believe Goodwin primarily issued baseball cards during the baseball season and actress cards during the winter (at least in the US). They really could and should be considered separate issues. Its a tougher call during 1887 when the cards were likely issued together.

To recap, you could separate the set out by year as shown above. Five sets in total. But I'd still prefer to separate out the short from long /"0" numbered. The reason for cataloging in the various ways I've suggested is to bring clarity to each individual type of Old Judge card. Each type of issue (short vs "0" number, Fa vs Fb) is different and easily identified if you know what to look for.

Despite all this conjecture, I'll restate that I'm also OK with just leaving them all lumped together as 1886-1890 N172s. There are more collectors who go after players, teams, poses they find interesting, or subsets within a given year than those who focus on just a particular year. The best solution for the complex set may be what we have today, an exhaustive listing of everything rolled into one alphabetic list.

If the OJ set were catalogued by year, would it change the way you collect the set?

[oldjudge]

What is your purpose for wanting to combine the Short Number and "0" Number series? It obviously isn't to aid in your own collecting--all the numbers are provided in the book so you have an effective checklist. Are you planning in trying to complete either of these series--my guess is no.

[cyseymour]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

Many different options. I can see the benefit of listing by year, throwing all the various types from that year together, perhaps as follows:

1886-87 Script
1887 Numbered (includes short number & both type A & B long /"0" numbered)
1888 (both Fa & Fb)
1889 (Fc)
1890 (Fc NL/PL)

Maybe even just call the Script 1886 to avoid overlapping with the numbered cards even though some script cards absolutely date to 1887.

No strong opinion on the N171 and N174 issues. They deserve to be split up just like the baseball cards above, but I don't much like the idea of trying to list all the Fb actress cards to join the baseball cards. By 1888, I believe Goodwin primarily issued baseball cards during the baseball season and actress cards during the winter (at least in the US). They really could and should be considered separate issues. Its a tougher call during 1887 when the cards were likely issued together.

To recap, you could separate the set out by year as shown above. Five sets in total. But I'd still prefer to separate out the short from long /"0" numbered. The reason for cataloging in the various ways I've suggested is to bring clarity to each individual type of Old Judge card. Each type of issue (short vs "0" number, Fa vs Fb) is different and easily identified if you know what to look for.

Despite all this conjecture, I'll restate that I'm also OK with just leaving them all lumped together as 1886-1890 N172s. There are more collectors who go after players, teams, poses they find interesting, or subsets within a given year than those who focus on just a particular year. The best solution for the complex set may be what we have today, an exhaustive listing of everything rolled into one alphabetic list.

If the OJ set were catalogued by year, would it change the way you collect the set?

Joe, I completely agree with pretty much everything you're writing here, thanks for making such a great synopsis. To answer your question, the way that I collect is already evolving, but really for me is more for the greater interest of the cards and the hobby.

That said, there are infinite amounts of ways to view a particular set. Someone could choose to color code a set, seeing that there are millions of colors, or use binary computer code (imagine describing my Connie Mack as "0111011010101"!!!!). There is no right or wrong... it's just that some systems or organizations might have certain benefits which I describe above.

So it's really not about judging people or how they've done things, just thinking outside the box to help advance the hobby, and maybe organize things in a way that could be perceived as more collector-friendly; but even that is subject to debate, as it should be.

Cheers

J