Card Identification Forum

V3 and I have been working on the checklist for the 1910-19 Coupon Cigarettes (T213) series. The second series set (1914-1916) contains 3 cards for "Camnitz" (no first name listed). Two of the cards have "Pittsburgh" listed as the team and one card has Savannah listed as the team.

PSA (as well as many other sources) attribute all 3 cards to Howie Camnitz. See the slabbed image.

I think PSA (and many others) got this one wrong. 

Howie Camnitz never played for Savannah. Baseball Reference lists Howie Camnitz playing for the Pittsburgh Rebels for the 1914 and 1915 seasons. The Society for American Baseball Research explains that Howie Camnitz was released by the Rebels during the 1915 season after an altercation with another guest at the team's hotel in New York. His release was controversial and the club released a statement saying, ""We did everything in our power to protect Camnitz, and he would have continued to be a member of our club had he conducted himself properly." Howie left baseball and entered into the auto sales business in Louisville, KY. He would remain in auto sales until a month before his death in 1960.

His little brother Harry Camnitz did play for the 1915 Savannah Colts. Although not as famous as his older brother, Harry did spend two years in the majors; playing for the 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates (both Howie and Harry are listed on the roster) and the 1911 St. Louis Cardinals. The remainder of Harry's career (1907-1915), was spent in the minors.

I plan on listing Harry Camnitz as the player for the "Savannah" card. This is different than the PSA checklist and the checklist at The Cardboard Collection.

Based on what I just presented, I believe that this card is an UER showing an image of "Howie Camnitz" but based on the Savanah team it is a card of "Harry Camnitz".

I am not a baseball expert, so before I thumb my nose at the rest of the hobby, I thought it would be a good idea to ask the smart people for their thoughts.

All I can say is that everything you've said is supported by my research, which is why I listed him as Harry. I'm convinced it's Harry.

But I'm not one of the smart people....

v3

V3 you are definately one of the smart people. Your work has been spot-on while mine has been.......well, not spot-on.

All I can add is that I think you're making an assumption as to where the error lies.  You're assuming the picture is the error, not the team.  That the picture (illustration) is Harry not Howie.  If that's true then Howie Camnitz's T3 card is wrong since it uses the same illustration.  The T3's were issued in 1911, two years after Harry left Pittsburgh but Howie was still there until 1913. And they are illustrations not photos, so there's not enough detail to distinguish true identity.

I believe I read on the excellent website Pre War Cards that it was not uncommon for them to use the same image for more than one person back in those days. I would say your research is correct based on what I read in this thread (as I've never heard of either of them OR the Savannah team before reading this thread right now)

Chuck...I didn't verbalize it well, but you captured the essence of my question, "what is the error on the card with "Savannah" listed as the team?

I believe that the image is Howie. It is the same image as the card with "Pittsbugh" as the team and the same image as your example. So I think we can safely assume that the image is Howie. If the card is titled "Howie Camnitz" then  the error is in listing the team as "Savannah" as Howie never played for Savannah.

If the card is of Harry Camnitz who did play for Savannah during the time frame that this series was issued then the error is in the image because (as already pointed out) the image is of Howie.

I like the idea of listing the player as Harry Camnitz with the error being in the image. I think it adds an interesting historical twist to the series to have brothers listed in the same set. 

I appreciate your musings, CAD. This set has been a chore and a joy to parse through, with other similar mysteries. Some of the cards don't even list a team, and the manufacturers really didn't care what uniform the picture portrayed, and sometimes, especially in the Type 3s, I think Coupon just wanted to make a card of a formerly popular player, who may or may not have actually still been playing. It's all made for quite an adventure and shows some of our modern card biases.

Back to the substance, I think the question is "what player is the card manufacturer trying to show us/tell us about?" The Savannah player they want to portray, regardless of whatever picture they pulled, was Harry Camnitz.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. And specially thanks to Chad for trying to finish up where I could not.

v3

With the lack of television, internet, etc., it's likely that the manufacturer was just as unsure which Camnitz they had as the rest of us are.