1910 Bishop and Company Set (E221)

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	E221 Bishop and Company Teams
Year	1910
Size	2 3/4″ x 10″
Images	Black and White
Type	Candy/Caramel
Number in Set	5

E221 Bishop and Company Team Cards Overview

The 1910 E221 Bishop and Company set includes five cards of teams from the Pacific Coast League. These cards are incredibly scarce and teams represented include Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, and Vernon.

The only other team in the league at the time was in Sacramento. While that card has not yet been discovered, the hope is that it exists somewhere. It is quite possible that their card was in fact printed since printing cards of only five of the six teams in the league wouldn’t seem to make too much sense. Still, there is evidence that the sixth card does not exist. An uncut sheet of the cards was believed to be found containing only the five known cards.

Finally, an alternate theory exists that there were in fact six cards – but one was a variation of the Los Angeles card, which has been discovered.

In short, the set remains a bit of a mystery.

The cards include full black and white images of the teams against a colored background. The cards are extremely long (measuring 10″ long x 2 3/4″ tall) and folded intentionally, which is similar to the T201 Mecca Double Folders cards or T202 Hassan Triple Folders. The fold, obviously, does not factor into the grading discussion. Cards were packaged with Bishop and Company chocolate bars, nut bars, and almond bars, which sold for five cents.

Names of all players pictured were included on the fronts and the backs were blank.