1953 Red Man Baseball Forum

Question for thought - should (Red Man tobacco) cards with the tabs be considered a variation of cards without the tabs?  Or vice versa - should the card without the tabs be considered a variation of cards with the tab)?  

Or keeo it like it is?

I will collect each "variation" either way.   Or maybe Im just being selfish and want to see it on the DB so I can check it off LOL

Interested in your thoughts?

I think years ago I had commented about this for the ALL Red Man sets. In my opinion the Tabbed version should be the "base" version of the cards as that is how it was released, with the more commnon missing tabs listed as a variant. With the tab the card is complete without it you only have about 90% of the card. The few Red Man cards I have I have the tabbed version, only one maybe two of are missing the tab.

I think the Tabbed variant should be the main checklist with the more common missing tabs. However a similar set the 1984 McDonald's NFL cards have the untabbed versions listed as the main set and the individual (by the week they were released) Tabbed variants as "inserts/related sets". I think that is reversed but at least that way they are listed. Again for these sets the ones I have (All-Stars and Redskins (Rams Maybe)) I have the tabbed ones.

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/9179/1986-McDonald's-All-Star-Team

The issue seems to be similar to the scratched off vs non-scratched versions of the 1980-81 Topps Hockey set. In that case the cards had a black film over the player name that you had to "scratch" or rub with a coin to see the player's name. In the case of the Hockey cards you don't know the player's name on the unscratch version and most collectors seem to prefer the easier scratched version. https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/4853/1980-81-Topps This set doesn't mention the variants but the images are mixed some scratched some unscratched.

The McDonald's sets were originally one of the four weeks as the base, which made no sense when A) there were multiple weeks, and B) the card itself was the same on all versions and the tab was meant to be removed. That's why we updated it to be cards w/ no tab as the base and each week as a separate related set.