W529 Strip Cards Set and Checklist

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	W529 Strip
Year	1920s
Size	1 3/8″ x 2 1/2″ (but varies by cut)
Images	Color
Type	Strip
Number in Set	Varies by Subset

W529 Jack Dempsey Boxing.jpg

W529 Strip Card Overview

In all, there are ten different boxers in this set as well as a total of six baseball players. But the entire series includes many more than 16 cards because it is made of numerous variations.

Jefferson Burdick identified the W529 set in his American Card Catalog but didn’t provide many more details other than to say it was a small card set with some reversed image variations.

Most of the cards in this series are similar to the W516 baseball strip cards. There are at several different variations of those and there are numerous variations of the boxing cards as well. As outlined in this Net54 post, there are many different sub series’ of this set, similar to the W516 strip cards. The variations include images being reversed, card numbers being reversed, and color/font variations.

W529 Strip Card Types

There are eight recognized types of W529 cards. In all, five of these resemble the W516 baseball sets.

According to this page with pictures of each, the eight types are:

W529-1: W516-like with hand-written names (this appears to be the most common)
W529-2: Same as Type 1 but reversed
W529-3: Same as Type 2 but with different numbers
W529-4: W516-like with typed names
W529-5: Same as Type 4 but reversed
W529-6: Big Heads strip card-like
W529-7: Same as Type 6 but with color variation
W529-8: Borderless cards with names at top of the cards

W529-8 and Baseball

What is called the eighth subset under this classification feature cards with a unique look. This one is generally the one that draws the most interest as it includes baseball cards. This grouping includes a total of 12 cards – six baseball players and six boxers. They were initially printed in 12-card uncut sheets as seen below.

W529 Rogers Hornsby Strip Card.jpg

There are two types of these cards. One set utilizes only yellow, orange, and blue (left) while a second is a full color version (right). These have sometimes been called the IFS orange and blue series but have been labeled by the grading companies as W529-8 in recent years. Given that the baseball card images match those found in the W516 strip card set, they could just as easily be classified as a W516 issue instead.

One inclination may be to simply believe that ink shortages during the print run were at play. But as I’ll explain later, that is clearly not the case. We know that from minor differences in the uncut sheets.

Neither of the uncut sheets are easy to find and hand cut cards like those shown here are more commonly seen. The baseball cards are highly desirable, featuring Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander, and Rogers Hornsby.

This series, as indicated at the top of the sheet, is called the “Comb. (Combined) Baseball and Prize Fighters” set.

W529-8 Variation Theories

W529-2 Full Color Uncut Sheet.jpg Some believe that the two types of W529-8 cards were intentional. However, I believe that the yellow/orange/blue cards may not have been intended for distribution for a few reasons.

First, these cards simply do not look like traditional cards. And while that can be said of many other cards as well, given there is a cleaner, full-color variation of those cards, I believe that was the way they were intended to be distributed (this full color sheet shown here was from a 2017 Heritage Auction). The other variation may simply have been a small run that was misprinted or still in production.

Also interesting to me is the title on these sheets. On the yellow/orange/blue version, you’ll notice the title is called ‘Comb. (likely for combined) Baseball and Prize Fighters.’ On the full color version, though, the ‘Comb.’ is dropped to a shorter, more succinct title. That is a more reasonable title for the set and the other version with the ‘Comb.’ looks like something you might find more on a test issue.

The biggest reason, however, that I believe one may have been a test issue can be found in the upper right corner of the sheets. In the full color sheet, you’ll notice that the Baseball & Prize Fighters name was trademarked. No such trademark exists on the yellow/orange/blue sheet. For that reason, I believe that was the ‘still in production’ version.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, we know that the yellow/orange/blue cards are clearly not just an ink variation caused by the printer’s ink levels being off. We know that from the trademark at the top of one and the different name. These were two different sheets because, while the cards were the same, the headers at the tops of the sheets were different.