E102, 1908 or 1909?

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Ryan, Leon, and Mr. Lipset... those guys are right about a lot of old ball card stuff. Mr. Lipset's Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards Vol 2 does not designate a year on page 22 of the E102 listing.

Our childhood ball card collecting taints our thinking about the dating of old cards; eg, because the 1967 Topps cards came out in series starting in the spring of 1967 and finishing in September or thereabouts, we think that ball card issues were tied to seasons. Yet when we step back and think about it, we have no reason to think that those candy cards were printed at the beginning of a particular season.

Minor League baseball seemed to explode and expand, Americans were flocking to ball games. And cigarette and candy companies were sticking ball cards in their products. When did T206 cards hit the streets? I think advertising for them was in September of 1909; that's not at the beginning of a season! I figure the E cards were appearing about then, too. Maybe a month sooner, or later.

All of those confusing E cards (and I'm not talking E90-1s)... E92, E101, E93-94-97-98, E95 and E96... E102 is a bit of a cousin to E92 and E91. Nadja cards were in Nadja candy products, Philadelphia Caramel cards were in Philadelphia Caramel products... what were E102's for? Lord knows. I figure it was for smaller candy companies that wanted some cards for inserts, but didn't want a card that had some other candy company's name on it. I think E102's began arriving in the fall of 1909. They may have continued and spilled over into early 1910. Brian may have something with his 1910 thinking, but I'm still thinking it's 1909. Had it been a named, widely distributed candy product with the company name on the back, a date may be fine tuned one day. Bur for 'anonymous' cards that would have appeared in products from small companies scattered across the nation it's gonna be difficult to pin a specific date down.

Solid point Frank, I appreciate the anon sets for their mystery.