n172 Old Judge Pretzels "Getzien/Cetzein" Joke Card

[MW1]

Cy,

I like your enthusiasm but that was totally random.

[cyseymour]

Originally Posted by MW1

Cy,

I like your enthusiasm but that was totally random.

Not random at all. Think about it.

[cyseymour]

Just an offhand observation -

Jerry Seinfeld

Sein - to be
Feld - Field

Roughly translations to, "to be of the fields". Likely, Jerry Seinfeld's ancestors were fieldworkers.

[Joe_G.]

Cyseymour, I’m 99% sure you are just trying to yank my chain but many others on the forum probably don’t realize you are kidding. For their benefit, I’ll correct you. Very few cards, scorecards, and newspapers seemed to be able to spell Getzien’s name correctly, but none of them spelled it with a “C” (at least not his baseball cards). The following is a sampling of the errors:

N172 , N173, N284, N338-2, N403/E223 => Getzein

N29 & N43 => Getzin

Police Gazette => Gatzein

Scrapps => Getzen

It seems only the Detroit Free Press (on occasion) and a handful of scorecards managed to keep it straight. Reason for all the errors may be linked to the way it was pronounced. From the June 13th, 1886 Detroit Free Press:

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Getzien says his name is spelled Getzien and pronounced Getzeen.

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If you feel his N172 cards spell out “Cetzein”, then the cards are apparently issued by “Coodwin and Go.”

I agree that the “C” and “G” can be difficult to decipher on many Old Judge cards and this is why there is debate as to whether the Deacon White portrait is spelled McCREACHERY or McGREACHERY. Lew Lipset, who once owned the card, believed it was/is McGREACHERY. But Cetzein??, and by extension Cibson, Cilks, Cillespie, Cilligan, . . .

The N173 belongs to the Met.

[Joe_G.]

I should probably post a clear scan of N172 as well (from LOC)

[Jay Wolt]

Joe, here's his N284

[Matthew H]

That Police Gazette is a beauty Joe.

[cyseymour]

I get it, the card is not a joke. If you google "cetzein", the newspaper articles show up, but more recently, whoever put the newspaper online obviously was the one who misspelled the name, not the writer in the newspaper. I'm kind of on limited technology with my chromebook and couldn't really see it in person, but I can see that in the actual newspaper article that it is spelled Getzein.

I still personally found it interesting to learn the etymology behind the name Getzien and what their name most likely was in Germany. As far as the n172 card you posted, is seems like they corrected the similarities between C and G for 1889 in their typeface. The G's have a much clearer dogleg that the 1888 cards do.

I don't expect to be correct about everything, but it is fun to post certain theories, even if not all of them turn out to be true. And I still definitely believe that the Getziens living today must be Amish. This seems the only plausible reason they are not found on the internet, and they must have been highly religious considering the name "Gottsein."

[Joe_G.]

Are you reading the paper as "Cetzein" because that is what you want to see? The resolution is poor, but if I had to pick between a C & G, I'd go with G. Look at "Cuban Giants" and "Clarkson" just above the circled Getzeins.

[Joe_G.]

nm, enough is enough.