1916   M101-4/5   Sporting News
Relative Population of Card Backs

The M101-5/4 cards were produced by Felix Mendelsohn and sponsored by numberous businesses to help promote their various products. The table below identifies all known back sponsors and variations as of January, 2017 and reflects estimates based on the known populations as that time. It should be emphasized that for most sponsors these estimates are based on very small samplings of cards known to collectors (sometimes only a "handful" of cards or less). As a result, a small find of cards with these backs could significantly alter the relative population estimates. A much more detailed discussion of the various sponsors and the relative scarcity of each of these backs can be found in an article "Making Sense of M101-5 & M101-4 (Mendelsohn’s Trend Setter of 1916)" by collector's Tim Newcomb and Todd Schultz in Issue #16 (Summer 2008) of Old Cardboard magazine. Todd Schultz subsequently updated and expanded the discussion of M101-4/5 backs in an article available in the Reference Library section of this website. Relative Population Estimate (%) M101-5/4 Sponsors ACC # Among Sponsors Between Sets M101-4 M101-5 (1) (blank back) - 40 60 40 (2) Altoona Tribune - 0.7 100 0 (3) Block & Kuhl - 0.6 80 20 (4) Bucyrus Brewing - * 100 0 (5) Burgess-Nash - 0.4 100 0 (6) Chicago Examiner - * 0 100 (7) Everybody’s (3 var.) - 1 100 0 (8) Famous and Barr - 12 10 90 (9) Furniture City Brewing - * 100 0 (10) Gimbels (3 var.) - 3.5 90 10 (11) Globe Clothing H801-9 3.5 100 0 (12) Green-Joyce - 0.9 100 0 (13) Herpolsheimer - 4.5 90 10 (14) Holmes to Homes - 1.5 0 100 (15) Indianapolis Brewing - 3 100 0 (16) Mall Theatre - 0.2 100 0 (17) Morehouse Baking D352 2 65 35 (18) Sporting News M101-4/5 17 100 0 (19) Standard Biscuit D350 3.5 55 45 (20) Successful Farming - 0,6 0 100 (21) Ware’s Basement - 0.6 100 0 (22) Weil Baking Co. D329 4.5 100 0 100

* The Bucyrus Brewing and Furniture City Brewing cards of the M101-4 set are known only in uncut sheet format (one Bacyrus and two Furniture City sheets). They are blank-backed with the sponsor label printed in the sheet border on front. In addition, a single uncut sheet of the M101-5 set, sponsored by the Chicago Examiner newspaper, was discovered in September 2010. None of the cards from these sheets are included in the population percentage totals above. Note: Because a Noon-Day Cafeteria back has not been confirmed beyond a photocopy of a single example provided years ago and it cannot be confirmed by collectors today, that sponsor is not included in the backs checklist above.

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