Question on 41 Playball Copyright Variation

[Kutcher55]

Cool! This means beyond much doubt that there were at least three separate print runs of this set. My theory is there was an initial run of just cards 1-24 with ‘@1941’. Then there was a subsequent and possibly smaller print run of cards 1-48 also with ‘@ 1941.” And then finally a larger delayed print run of 1-72 without the ‘1941.’

This would be supported by the fact that there are few stars in #25-48 so perhaps the second run was smallest of all and maybe the one most interrupted by war activities. The only thing I don’t like about the theory is that #49-72 would only appear on 1 of 3 print runs so you would think those cards would be more scarce than they seem to be. But perhaps this was a slightly larger run than the first two. Or, maybe they overprinted 49-72 in the final run to help catch those cards up a bit?

Either way there had to have been at least 3 print runs.