Proposed Old Judge Reorganization

[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.