A refresher course on why the Joe Doyle Nat'l card is so rare

[Archive]

Posted By: Red

Please understand that the series of events you described could very well have happened exactly like you've described. You're basing your theory on what's known about timing of print runs and the known surviving examples. It's the best story of the card so far but it's not impossible that the Doyle mess didn't come about in a different way. If Doyle(any variation) cards were printed and shipped off to Piedmont along with all the other cards in that series then my guess is that they would have been shipped all together and in the same approximate quantity per player. If the shipment only included the Nat'l then they'd have to exist in a much larger quantity. So maybe that first shipment to Piedmont also included some of the other variations of Doyle. If the printer removed most of the Nat'l to create the dotted variation, then that first shipment of cards to Piedmont could have also included dotted cards along with the Nat'l variation. If they removed most of the Nat'l and started printing again why now do you find different backs on that partial quick fix card. I'd then assume that later the Nat'l was removed completely and all the other backs became possible. Then you have a card like I pictured missing more of the lettering at bottom, and it is not unique, and maybe it's possible to consider that the removal of Nat'l wasn't intentional. It's just odd that you'd ship down to Piedmont a gazillion cards, presumably in an equal player distribution, and include only the Nat'l variation of the Doyle in an extremely limited quantity. Possible? Impossible?