1916-1920 Date for "Big Head" Strip Cards

[oaks1912]

Although I have not specifically researched the players / team affiliations in this set, I do have one experience dealing with them from 'outside the hobby'. Nearly 20 years ago, I was contacted by a lady in San Francisco, who was in the process of settling her father's estate. Among the estate, were thousands of baseball cards and other memorabilia. Her father was raised in the Washington / Baltimore area , and from the surviving artifacts, he collected primarily from 1920-1925. Included in the collection were numerous strip card series including W-514, 516, 519, 520 and what are now referred to as 'Big Heads'. The condition of the cards was all over the map, along with the player / set distribution. Generally speaking the 514, 516 & 519 cards exhibited more handling. THe 520 and Big Heads had the least amount of handling. Based on this observation, and comparing it with the consistency of other similar finds, the lesser condition cards were likely the 'older' ones for this kid, and the nicer conditioned card were acquired later. By 1922, the original collector advanced to saving Senators scorecards and tickets, and there did not appear to be any cards collected by him from this time on. Its always possible that these cards were gifted to him , or otherwise acquired at a later time, but the various series of cards were well blended together. I would think that a 1921 or 1922 issue date would be more likely based on the above factors, and I would have a hard time accepting a pre 1920 date of issue, at least as far as the specific cards that I purchased in this single collection. . With strip cards / anonymous issues it is very possible that multi-year and multiple methods of distribution were utilized by various jobbers or retailers, depending on their individual needs, or regions represented. With strip cards, it will be challenging to completely answer most aspects of their existence. Hope this helps...

[Matt]

Mark - great information. I believe the original date range of 1916-1920 is based on when all the players depicted were playing, (Doyle being the first to exit after the 1920 season). That being the case, 1921 is probably the more correct end date as players from 1920 would be on cards produced in 1921.

So, we have 1918-1921 now and your anecdotal evidence leads you to believe 1921.

As an aside, I don't have an issue with changing "established" years for these, as it seems the way the years were previously established was by doing a quick run down of start-playing and end-playing dates of everyone combined and narrowing the window accordingly. It seems clear to me that such a quick & dirty method missed Bodie's hiatus (as well as the lack of PT for some of the players in those years) and therefore mistakenly put the possible issue date starting at 1916.