Variants: LePage’s Glue Trade Card
Many collectors of trade cards also collect variants of certain cards, which indicate different print runs. Sometimes the word content changes, sometimes the changes are more subtle. Generally one finds but two or three variants of a given card, but some cards have more variants than that. For one trade card, I have found ten different variants so far, of basically the same design. One must wonder why a company would have gone back to press so very many times; perhaps each print run was relatively short for some reason, and the company kept needing more . . . ?
That trade card with ten known variants to date is the LePage’s Liquid Glue card with policemen attempting to lift a man glued to a public (train station?) bench, presumably because they thought he was loitering under the “NO LOAFERS ALLOWED HERE” sign.
I keep a listing of these cards, assigning a different “Type” number to each individual variant. For most of them, several differences from the others can be found upon close scrutiny, but in my Types listing below, I give only the most easily noticed differences.
(Note: The British-style “custodian helmets” worn by the policemen were at times used in New York City and certain other American cities.)
TYPE 1
Two cops pulling, no additional cops en route, no printer ID
TYPE 2
Two cops pulling, no additional cops en route, Frank G. Bufford, Lith.
TYPE 3
Two cops pulling, no additional cops en route, Forbes. Co. Lith.
TYPE 4
Five cops pulling, three additional cops en route, no printer ID, no wording on left or right side
TYPE 5
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, Bufford Lith. Boston. Comma and dash in bottom text between “Pullin” and “I’m stuck”.
TYPE 5A
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, Bufford Lith. Boston. NO comma or dash in bottom text between “Pullin” and “I’m stuck”.
TYPE 6
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, Morgan & Co., Cleveland
TYPE 7
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, no printer ID, end quote after GLUE. at bottom right, pinkish wall behind the “NO LOAFERS” sign
TYPE 8
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, no printer ID, NO end quote after GLUE. at bottom right, yellow-ish/tan wall behind the “NO LOAFERS” sign, “NO LOAFERS” sign has a single line at top, man on bench has a blue-ish hat
TYPE 9
Five cops pulling, six additional cops en route, no printer ID, NO end quote after GLUE. at bottom right, man on bench has a solid black hat, “NO LOAFERS” sign has a double line at top, the period at the end of the text at top aligns with the right-side rule below (which is not true for any of the other variants)