Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Reading Is Fundamental

A while back, I posted about winning an auction that included an Allen & Ginter Fans of the Period (N7) card that I really liked. Since then, I've picked up a more of those cards, mostly in low grade condition. So, I actually was up to 17 unique cards from the 50 card Fans set.

In a recent auction, I saw a lot that was titled as eight higher grade Fans cards. Since most of my current cards were lower grade, I figured I would bid because, even if there was cards in the lot that duplicated what I already had, they would still be upgrades.  And, I ended up winning the auction.

Fast forward to the cards arriving and, as I open the envelope and look at them, they don't look anything remotely like the typical Fans card. So, I flip then over and what do I see?


 That's right. These aren't Allen & Ginter Fans of the Period, they are from the A&G set designated N18 - Parasol Drill.


Figuring that the auction house shipped me the wrong lot, I went back and double checked the auction.  Alas, the lot I won was mistitled, but the underlying description was correct and, if I had bothered to look at the images closely, I would probably have noticed that the subjects weren't actually holding fans.


But, I didn't and I should have darn well known better. So, this is all on me.


Ah well, I guess I am collecting this set now too.  That, or maybe I'll just consider this an early entry into a future N-series Type card collection. Either way, let this be a cautionary tale, boys and girls.  Always, always, always read the full description.

8 comments:

  1. I haven't seen that particular set before, kind of neat!

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  2. I guess befuddled as to why these were included in cigarette packs. Did the inclusion of these cards of ladies holding umbrellas sway gentlemen of the period to buy the A&G brand? I'll be the first one to admit I love chasing oddball baseball cards from food brands, but these parasol cards are perplexing. I would love to travel back in time and see what kind of buzz there was for these!

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    1. I know exactly what you mean. The auction description (that I failed to read initially) said "The set is one of the less popular sets among the (44) chromolithographed sets that Allen & Ginter produced during the late 1880's into the early 1890's." I presume that refers to the current popularity, but still...

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  3. "Fans of the Period" could be taken very much the wrong way.

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  4. Way back then, there were no bikini models or anything so this was as close as they got to hot babes.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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