H804-15 Red Border Position Trade Cards Set and Checklist

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	H804-15 Red Border Position Trade Cards
Year	1800s
Size	3″ x 4 1/2″
Images	Color
Type	Trade
Number in Set	16 (12 in H804-15A and four in H804-15B)

H804-15 Red Border Position Trade Cards Overview

This set is part of the baseball comic series of trade cards.

The cards feature a variety of humorous baseball scenes. The set gets its name from the fact that, like the Circled Position set, it features players at various positions on the field. The set also has a red line serving as the border.

Collector and author Frank Keetz has identified two separate sets of cards in this classification – H804-15A and and H804-15B.

H804-15A cards feature the various positions on a baseball team as well as a printed “9” on them. A total of ten cards are known, including a ‘batsman,’ ‘champion spurter,’ and an ‘umpire.’ A first baseman and second baseman was not known at the publication of his book but assuming they exist, that would bring the total of cards to 12 in this set.

H804-15B cards are similar to H804-15A but have a different type of font and do not have the number “9.”

It is important to note that cards with this same layout are known other than the baseball issues. I have seen at least one tennis trade card utilizing the design and my guess is that others exist as well.

As is the case with most trade cards, these are fragile and printed on thinner card stock. For that reason, they can be torn or ripped quite easily and damaged easier than standard baseball cards.

Many trade cards were used by numerous companies and that is the case with this set. That is in part because it was easier to use artwork that was already produced rather than going through the trouble of creating your own. For that reason, the fronts of the card can be blank with only the picture/caption or include an advertisement for different companies.

Picture Variants Between H804-15A and H804-15B

One thing that many collectors are not ware of is that the pictures of the subjects vary slightly between the H804-15A and H804-15B sets.

Each of the four cards in H804-15B picture subjects found in the larger H804-15A set. However, the images are a little different in those instances.

Old Cardboard has images of all of the cards in the set. The easiest way to spot the differences are typically the backgrounds. H804-15A cards feature subjects against a mostly basic playing field. H804-15B cards include the addition of fences (and in some cases, grandstands) with fans.

H804-15 Red Border Position Trade Cards Checklist

H804-15A