Blank Back Issues Carrying Local Retailer Backstamp

[Jobu]

I will follow Val's (love that WaJo) with my only card that meets the OP's description. I thought it had to be the only autographed card from this set until I was recently surprised to see a signed Harry Hooper.

[darwinbulldog]

Three cards, four confectionery companies' stamps

[darwinbulldog]

Here's a better picture of the last one for viewing the second (i.e., not Henry Johnson) stamp.

The usual Henry Johnson stamp reads as follows:

Henry A. Johnson,
Wholesale Confectioner,
1827 Bay St., Alameda
Phone Alameda 2785 W.

The other stamp replicates this format from everything we can see. Here's what I can make out and, in bold, what I have extrapolated to be the most likely missing text (after more time and effort than I would care to admit but which will become apparent if you continue reading on for some reason).

Howard P. Boyer,
Wholesale Candy,
??2 Thirty-Ninth St., Piedmont
Phone Piedmont 6149 W.

If each line is centered, there are three missing characters after the "BO," which gives this list of reasonable surnames, in order of descending frequency in the U.S. census:

Bowen
Boone
Booth
Boyer
Boyle
Boggs
Boyce
Bower
Bonds

And it just so happens that when you search for each of these names, the cleanest result from Google is a current listing for a Howard P. Boyer who lives in Sacramento (which is sort of kind of in the vicinity of Piedmont). Maybe that doesn't mean much, but it's enough for me to guess that Boyer is at least slightly more likely than any one of the other names on the above list.

39th Street in Piedmont is quite short compared to most of the other numbered streets and seems always to have been this way from old maps of the area. It only runs up to about 1100, so the address here probably had only 3 digits.

The word Piedmont at the end of the line in assumed based on 1) amount of missing text we can extrapolate from the centering and 2) the format of the Henry Johnson stamp.

The placement of the presumptive P in Phone on the bottom line neatly lines up below the W in Wholesale, and the 9 in the address ends below a spot between the presumptive D and Y in Candy, leaving one missing character which should be either an E or a W (N and S are less likely but possible) to fall below the presumed comma. I don't know how their telephone exchange listings worked in the 1920s, but if you look at a map (or many maps as I have now), you'll see both that the Henry Johnson address is in fact located on the western half of the town of Alameda (distinct from the town of Alameda Island which actually occupies the same island) and that the entirety of 39th Street is on the western outskirts of Piedmont, so I'm guessing the missing character is a W.

[darwinbulldog]

Now if anybody ever finds another one of these stamps we can see if I earned a passing grade for the detective work.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Now if anybody ever finds another one of these stamps we can see if I earned a passing grade for the detective work.

Glenn, you have earned an "A" for effort, regardless of what is learned if/when another of these back stamps turns up!

[DaveW]

Glenn,
Very interesting stamp. Hopefully you'll find more info someday. Just a minor correction though - yes, Alameda and Piedmont are only a few miles apart (maybe 5 miles apart), but Sacramento is a good 85 or 90 miles away.
- Dave

[darwinbulldog]

Apparently I substituted Sacramento for Oakland when I got my result from Google. Stupid brain. Boyer is marginally less likely now. I'll edit the prior post.

[edjs]

Originally Posted by Jobu

I will follow Val's (love that WaJo) with my only card that meets the OP's description. I thought it had to be the only autographed card from this set until I was recently surprised to see a signed Harry Hooper.

Bryan, you can add this to the list now, I just got it back from authentication.

[whiteymet]

Bringing this thread back after 5 years. Hoping others can add to it.

Here are some Exhibit cards with stamps ads on the reverse of the cards

Salutation Exhibit with Playland Amusement Park in Michigam, Mantle Miami Fun Fair in Florida, Dodgers team card with a cool ad for bicycle repair etc. and Mantle Dad's Cookie cards from Vancouver Canada and finally Pittsburgh Post Gazette cards. I have both baseball and Basketball with different writers shown. Have a Jackie Robinson with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette back too.

[ValKehl]

I'd trade my first born for a Sam Rice card with this back stamp.

[Lorewalker]

Savannah, GA 1949 or 1950...

[brianp-beme]

Around a year or two ago while searching Ebay I came across two separate lots with a handful of W575-1 blank back cards, both from the same seller. I ended up winning both lots. I had noticed on the scans that one of the cards (Whitted) in one of the lots had a back stamp, and that another card appeared to have one as well. When I received them, lo and behold, with the help of a magnifying glass, each card had this back stamp! On most of the cards it is only partial and barely visible, amazingly even less so than the McInnis shown below (have some fun finding the scant traces of stamping on the McInnis), but heck the stamp is still there on each card.

Here is a thread about them from 9 years ago, which makes the interesting connection between the Service Candy Co. stamps and the Henry Johnson stamps, based upon both companies having the same phone number.

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=170808

So the takeaway is to always have a magnifying glass handy when examining those blank backsides, because there might just be a trace of stamping there!

Brian

[Al C.risafulli]

Great discovery, Brian.

I've only seen a couple of Service Candy cards since that thread almost a decade ago. I've still got mine!

-Al