Ever seen a National Copper Plate Portrait?

I recently had the distinct privilege of viewing what may be the only surviving complete set of 1898-1899 National Copper Plate Portraits (the forerunners of M101-1). The set was so nice that the Anson illustrated here is the worst of them (it's the only one with the string-binding holes torn).

As the guy who wrote the original listing for this set in the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards (Page 240 of the 2009 edition), it's a bit embarassing to admit that there are some errors in the introductory paragraph.

I'm going to correct that by publishing a thorough study of the set in a forthcoming issue of SCD and on the SCD web site. I'll shamelessly tease that upcoming article by sharing one of the pix with you.

Welcome to the board and thanks for the scan. I think I have seen maybe 5 of these for sale on ebay in the 8 1/2 years I have been on ebay. Now that you have teased us what type of information are you adding? new listings? distribution? How do you know this is a complete set, is there a published checklist from the company?

Looking forward to the information,

Lee

Hello Lee,

My article won't add anything earthshaking such as new players, etc., just fine-tuning the available data. The set is complete at the 50 players checklisted in the Standard Catalog, although the M101-1 Sprting News premium versions issued a year or two later has 62 players.

The article will provide team checklists, some information on where the pictures originated and some fun notes on some of the players found in this set but not in any other career-contemporary issue.