1917 Boston Store Set (H801-8)

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	H801-8 (E135) Boston Store
Year	1917
Size	2″ x 3 1/4″
Images	Black and White
Type	Trade
Number in Set	200

H801-8 Boston Store Overview

The 1917 H801-8 Boston Store cards were black and white with player images, names, positions, and teams on the front along with a card number. The set is virtually identical to the E135 Collins-McCarthy set.

Because they are the same cards used for the Collins-McCarthy set, they are sometimes called E135 cards. However, that isn’t really correct since they weren’t caramel/candy cards. They were even designated separately by Jefferson Burdick in the American Card Catalog, who classified them as H801-8 cards. The two sets merely shared the same pictures/players.

The lone difference between the set are the backs. The Collins-McCarthy backs state there are 200 cards comprising their ‘Baseball’s Hall of Fame’ with the Collins-McCarthy name, logo, and slogan. The Boston Store backs, instead, read as an advertisement for their store.

Specifically, the store mentioned the sale of boys’ items, including clothing, hats, shirts, handkerchiefs, sporting goods, and more.

Despite its name, which would lead most people to believe otherwise, the Boston Store was not actually located in Boston. It was located in the midwest and the H801-8 Boston Store cards are rare. As of the time of this writing, PSA has graded only about 300 of them in all.

A Misclassification?

Burdick cataloged these as H-Cards indicating they were trade/advertising issues of sorts. However, an interesting note in the American Card Catalog suggests he was pondering a move to the U-Card section.

U-Cards were mostly folders (i.e. matchbooks) but he also created the UM designation for ‘Miscellaneous’ issues, which were basically a catch all for anything else. At the end of that section, he noted that baseball cards, such as the Boston Store set, could possibly belong there instead. But pending further investigation, he was leaving them as H-Cards.