D381 Fleischmann Bakery/Ferguson Bakery Set and Checklist

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	D381 Fleischmann Bakery and D381 Ferguson Bakery
Year	1916
Size	2 3/4″ x 5 7/16″
Images	Black and White
Type	Bakery
Number in Set	100 (Fleischmann) / Ferguson Unknown

D381 Fleischmann Bakery / Ferguson Bakery Overview

D381 Ferguson Bakery D381 Ragan.jpg While most commonly referred to as the Fleischmann Bakery issue, the D381 cards were actually printed for both Fleischmann Bakery, based out of New York, and Boston-based Ferguson Bakery. Both types of cards are scarce but the Ferguson Bakery cards are rarer and more desirable.

Cards were tall and were printed in black and white. In their fully intact form, they contain a card of a player at the top and a coupon for either bakery at the bottom. However, since most coupons were used, these are often found with only the card portion left. Obviously, the fully intact cards with the coupon not removed carry a premium over the other versions.

Despite the removal of the coupon, it is still easy to discern whether the card was for Fleischmann Bakery or Ferguson Bakery. Directly below the player image on the Fleischmann cards, the player’s name and position was printed on one line followed by his team on a second line. The Ferguson cards, however, printed all of that information on a single line.

Pictured here is, first, a Fleischmann Bakery card and second, a Ferguson Bakery issue.

The cards also have some unique variations between the two bakeries, including spelling errors/corrections and different images used. Here’s some more information on those.

D381 Fleischmann Bakery / Ferguson Bakery Coupon Offers

There were some variances in the coupons offered. The coupons on the Fleischmann cards offered a leather album in exchange for 50 of them. The album held 100 cards, which was the total number offered in the set.

The Ferguson coupons, however, offered pillow top premiums. In exchange for 50 of their coupons, collectors could receive either a pillow top feature star baseball player pennants of movie actor pennants.

Only a few known pillow tops are still in existence today. That is hardly surprising given the number of coupons one needed to receive one. With only one card and one coupon being placed in a loaf of bread, a collector would need to buy 50 loaves to acquire one.

Here is a picture of the movie star pillow top and here’s the baseball one.

An interesting link to the baseball issue, of course, is Ferguson Bakery’s BF2 Pennants. Those featured pictures of players with their names on them and the same style was roughly used for the pennants in this premium, albeit slightly different. The pennants on this pillow top, too, were also larger than the BF2s.

Two Types of D381 Fleischmann Cards

It is important to note that while there are both Fleischmann and Ferguson cards, there are actually two different types of Fleischmanns.

The two Fleischmann types can easily go unnoticed but they do exist. The two different types have different addresses in New York City on the coupon for the redemption program.

D381 Fleischmann Bakery / Ferguson Bakery Checklist

Note that these are cards for the Fleischmann Bakery set. The Ferguson Bakery set includes some of these cards as well as a handful of others not in the Fleischmann set, but a checklist for that issue is not fully confirmed as few have been seen. Old Cardboard has a checklist of the known Ferguson Bakery cards.

The cards are rare as SGC has graded only a few of each card.