Redemption Program: 2013-2015

The 2013-2015 Redemption Series:

The 2013-2015 Ars Longa Art Cards Redemption Series was inspired by three different baseball products from 1888:

• 1888 Allen & Ginter’s World’s Champions (N43)
• 1888 Joseph Hall cabinets
• 1888 S.F.Hess (N338-2)

1888 Allen & Ginter World’s Champions (N43):

The 1888 Allen & Ginter World’s Champions (N43) series features 50 champion athletes from the world of sports, six of which are baseball players who appear on 3 different baseball-themed backgrounds. The reverses of the baseball cards feature the entire Series Two checklist with an advertisement for Allen & Ginter tobacco located in Richmond, Virginia. The original Allen & Ginter cards measure 3.25″ x 2.875″.

The six players originally featured are:

1. Buck Ewing
2. Jim Fogarty
3. Charlie Getzein
4. Doggie Miller
5. John Morrill
6. Jimmy Ryan

1888 Joseph Hall Cabinets & 1888 S.F. Hess (N338-2):

In 1888, famed Brooklyn studio photographer Joseph Hall photographed members of the World’s Champion New York Giants, both individually and within a team portrait. These images (plus four players from other teams; minus the team portrait) were used to create the 1888 S.F. Hess (N338-2) series of baseball cards. The team portrait would later be redrawn by hand and used to label boxes of Sporting Times Cigars.

2013-2015 Ars Longa Art Cards Redemption Series:

Inspired by the relative preponderance of material from 1888, the world champion theme, and Hall’s portraits, I thought it would be fun to merge the Allen & Ginter design motif with Joseph Hall’s images to create a unique, 1888 World’s Champions of Baseball series of cards.

The 2013-2015 Ars Longa Art Cards Redemption Series is comprised of 20 cards featuring the 19 most prominent members of the 1888 World Champion New York Giants and one team portrait. A series checklist is on the reverse of every card. The cards measure 3″ x 2.75″.

The series is organized into three different alphabetical subsets with a fourth subset consisting of just the team portrait card. Each of the three alphabetical subsets has its own background as inspired by the three different original backgrounds in the Allen & Ginter series. Each subset is marked on the reverse as having originated from one of four different regional facilities in the United States. The four cities represent a nostalgic nod to different phases of my life: I was born in South Boston, attended college in Atlanta, attended graduate school in Boulder and currently live in San Jose.

Here is the checklist:

Cards from the 2013-2015 Ars Longa Art Cards Redemption Series were never sold. They were created specifically for the Ars Longa mail-in Redemption Offer and were given free to customers who redeemed Ars Longa Thank You Coupons. I did not reveal the size, scope or theme or publish images of the cards on this website until December, 2015 so that I might preserve the element of surprise when folks received them.

• Ten complete sets were created, one card at a time as needed, and issued from 2013-2015
• An eleventh set was created and archived for preservation in the Ars Longa Vault
• More than 1,600 Thank You Coupons were redeemed by customers
• Some cards were gifted as Holiday Bonus Cards each December, from 2013 to 2015
• Holiday Bonus Cards are determined by formula and are awarded to the top customers, by dollars spent, each calendar year
• Three customers were able to collect the entire Redemption Series through the mail-in offer
• Future complete collections of the 2013-2015 Redemption Series may require purchases from the secondary market. If you should complete the series on your own after 12/31/2015, please let me know!

The 2013-2015 Redemption Series Reverses:

Subset I Reverse
South Boston, Massachusetts

Subset II Reverse
Boulder, Colorado

Subset III Reverse
Atlanta, Georgia

Subset IV Reverse
San Jose, California