Differences between W515-1 and W515-2

[glchen]

I recently purchased a lot of W515 strip cards that were closely trimmed to inside the borders, and I have been trying to determine if they are w515-1 or w515-2. The typical determining characteristics between the two according to old cardboard and the Standard Catalog are:

(1) W515-2 have the words "THE LITTLE WONDER PICTURE SERIES" above the top border of a full strip.

(2) The sizes of the cards are slightly different when you have the full box borders.

(3) The pictures of the players are cropped differently or look slightly different. For example, if you take a look at these W515-1 and W515-2 Walter Johnson's from another W515 thread here: Link, you can see that there is a lot of blue space above Wojo's cap in the W515-2, and there is lesser space above the W515-1 card.

For me, #3 is important because I can't use the #1 and #2 criteria since all of these cards I have are cut inside the borders (except for the bottom which still shows the player's name). However, this is something that is mentioned ambiguously in the Standard Catalog, but after reviewing a lot of these cards, I believe this can also be used as a criteria:

(4) The @U&U copyright for the W515-1 is on the same line at the player's name just below the bottom box border or just above that bottom box border while on the W515-2, the copyright is above the top border. If you look at the Walter Johnson cards from #3 criteria, you will see this. For cards that are cut inside the borders, the name on bottom is rarely cut off. Therefore, I believe that if I see the @U&U copyright on the bottom of the card, it is a W515-1. If I don't see it, then it's a W515-2.

Does anyone from their experience know if this #4 criteria is valid or are there some players in these sets that do not comply with this? If this is true, it would make it much easier and faster for me to determine what card is a W515-1 and W515-2 since I wouldn't have to compare the cropping differences using criteria #3 with known W515-1 and W515-2 images for each player off the internet. Thanks!


Edit: per post #3, rule #4 only works for cards #1-40 and not for 41-60.

[glchen]

To make it easier, I've directly attached the picture of the W515 Wojo cards from Val's post here.

[glchen]

Looking at Paul's complete W515-2 set that he posted here: Link, there are many cards that do not follow rule #4 on where the @U&U copyright symbol is. That is, for these W515-2 cards, the symbol is not above the top border, but is instead at a position similar to where it is on the W515-1. Basically, rule #4 only holds for cards #1-40. For cards #41-60, the W515-2 also has the copyright symbol at a similar place to the W515-1's. And there are some cards (e.g., the #47 Babe Ruth card) where the copyright symbol does not exist anywhere on the card for both the W515-1 and the W515-2 sets.

[h2oya311]

Thanks for the investigative work, Gary. I'll keep this post handy for any future W515-X's I pick up.

[T206Collector]

There is also a key to finding the differences in the use of yellow. For instance, the first 20 cards in the W515-2 set are awash in yellow. This is really apparent when you lay all of the cards out as I did in the other post about finishing the set. My Aaron Ward is a great example. How can you tell that it's a W515-2 and not a W515-2? You can't look to the borders, which are gone as it is heavily trimmed. But check out the yellow in his shoulders and up the middle of his jersey with the buttons. You don't see that use of yellow in the W515-1s. (Of course the different location of the copyright helps, too!)



I think you can also see that difference in WaJo's cap in the post above. The W515-2 has some yellow in it. Not so the W515-1.

[glchen]

Thanks for the input, Paul. I've put the images that Paul has above for #19 Aaron Ward to make it easier for everyone to compare (not to scale). The W515-1 is on the left, and the W515-2 from Paul's set in on the right. As you can see, the W515-2 has yellowing on the shoulders and cap area as well as other parts of the card, which aren't on the W515-1.