Goudeyhunter

A Set That Defied a War

If vintage baseball cards were a family, R302-1 MP & Co's would probably be a stepchild.  For all the great things this set represents, it probably couldn't be more unpopular amongst collectors today.  But the historical significance is there, you just have to dig awhile to find out how important this set really is.

Crude artwork, a monotonous color scheme, infantile designs, poor printing and a less than thoughtful backside are all reasons that have kept MP's in check over the years.  The R302-1 MP & Co issue has always carried the production year of 1943.  This might be a good place to reeducate folks about the issue.  Firstly, R302-1's were most likely produced on a multi-year basis. Although there's no evidence to support this yet, logic certainly does.  Want proof?  Take a look at the cards, a lot of them! 

Although I'm just getting warmed up in my own understanding of MP's, studying the 50 or so that I've amassed has helped me to understand some of its trivial secrets.  At 24 cards in all, you'd think this would have been as easy set to produce without problem.  Guess again!  Those 24 cards are riddled with variations beyond belief.  I haven't seen a great deal of variance on the front sides, but the backs reveal a much different story.  Flipped over, the backs contain brief biographies of the player, with some to all of the following five pieces of information:

Full name, position, team, an MP & Co stamp, a Made in USA stamp

Let's start with these five basic's.  The biggest variation found in MP's revolves around the "layout" of these five pieces of information.  Where one type displays all five, other types only include a few of them, such as the players name, position and the Made in USA stamp.  Others types have been found, and at present I've tracked down 4 distinctly different types. Considering the backs were printed in black or navy blue, that gives us 8 different types already!  The more interesting variation found on the card backs are the brief biographies of the players.  If a full biography exists for every player, it seems that a shortened one does as well.  I've only seen the truncated biography on a couple of the cards, but I'm pretty sure that all of them share this possibility.  So, if you multiply the by the number of types (4) by the number of cards, then by the number of ink colors, you have close to 200 different variations.  Not bad for a 24 card set!

The multi-year production theory fits in perfectly right here.  It's all but certain that MP's were produced at different points in time given all of the different variations that we see today.  You'll notice that I refer to these as variations, not "errors".  Errors are printing gaffes that make one card appear in two different ways, in an unintentional manner.  This isn't the case with MP's.  Most experts who collect this set agree that these "variations" were created because the cards were produced by separate printing presses, and most likely, at different points in time.  When new print jobs were arranged, printers most likely chose to alter the backside wording ever so slightly.   It can't be said for sure when MP's began production, but one expert informed me that they may have started as early as 1942, and that they were most likely printed over a 2-3 year span.   

Variation offers MP's a great deal of interest, but there's another aspect about the set which looms larger.  Historical significance does this set justice.  If not for the beauty of the cards (stop laughing), the one thing that hooked me into collecting MP's was the historical role it played. It's often said that baseball cards weren't made during WW II because government rationing prevented the materials and supplies needed to produce them.  This isn't exactly true.  When war broke out, rationing was a factor, and as the war raged on materials became harder to find, and more expensive to obtain.  But one thing that didn't happen was a shut down of card production due to rationing.  Gum and candy companies were affected and pursueded by the war just as much as the public.  As Americans became more vigilant in their understanding of world events, the need for information regarding the war grew rampant.  This put baseball cards on the backburner, as gum and candy companies turned their full attention to producing cards related to the war instead. Baseball cards didn't take a total leave of absence during the war, several smaller issues were produced.  Most of these were team issued sets, which were only available at the ballpark.  A handful of minor league sets also surfaced, but again, were only available on a regional level.  With the exception of one exhibit card issue; Salutation's (who's distribution range is unknown), no card issue was sold across America except R302-1 MP's.  Although no one knows how widespread MP's were sold, it's been verified that they were available in many larger cities across the US.  MP's achieved what no other baseball card issue did from 1942-45, they were sold nationally.

Originally sold in strips of 8 horizontal cards, amateur owners atoned for the distressed conditions we see the cards in today.  Of course, that's assuming that the original owner cut the cards apart...as evidenced by too many of my examples below, many just tore them apart. Yikes!  Here's the entire set..

Backside variations

I'm currently aware of four different backside types all of which are available in black or navy blue ink.  Aside from type 1, the other variations only include some of the five pieces of information listed above. I'd speculate that type 1 was produced first.  These cards have full backside information and usually have a much stronger color presentation on the front (like Camilli's card above and below).  As materials and printing got more expensive during the course of the war, truncating the backside wording and using weaker or less ink probably saved on production fee's. Sold in strips, the perforation lines can be readily seen in all four of these examples.

12/15/2007