Recent Pick Up

 I recently picked up another 1921 W516-1 Becker Prize Back example!

I try to pick these up whenever I see them as long as they are reasonably priced.  I saw this one on eBay the other day and put a snipe on it.  It was ending while I was going to be working so I couldn't watch it end and snipe it myself.  

When I checked back the next night I saw I had won it and I was very excited to add another example to my collection.  It's a dupe for me, but I'll pick these up no matter if I have it or not.  

Here is the Doyle that I picked up.

If you've never seen these cards before, the back reads,

Save your tablet fronts and win a prize

L.A. Becker

I've always assumed that L.A. Becker was a teacher who would give these cards out to his/her students to remind them or some sort of game or something where they could win a prize for turning in their tablet fronts when they were done filling out their tablets in class.

Maybe they also turned these cards back into the teacher with their tablets.  Maybe they got to keep them.  Either way, how did they survive all these years?  How many could have been made in total?  I can only imagine there were not too many created by Becker.  The cards came in 10 card strips to the teacher would have had to buy these from a store and cut them up and written the notes on the backs of each card.  

And only one 10 card strip was used for these.  All the known examples are from the same 10 card strip checklist.  Here are the ones I have so far (less the two dupes).

There is an example of Peckinpaugh that has been confirmed but I have never seen one.  And the last two players that were on the strip that have not been confirmed are Ring and Kauf.  If you have one of those two with the Becker back please let me know.  I would love to see them.

I get excited every time I see these.  I know of one other collector who picks these up as well and he has like 25 or more of them so far.  He has the Peckinpaugh and has also never seen the Ring or Kauf with this back.

If you have any of these please contact me.  If you want to sell or trade what you have I would be interested in chatting with you.  

What do you think about these cards?  Do you like them too?  Let me know guys.

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.