With a series as large as this, there were always going to be a few differences! Numerous print runs led to the variations in backs on the KF cards, but in addition they were responsible for other major differences such as the size of the picture, the colour of the background or shirt, the player’s name or initials and also the team changed when a player was transferred. On occasion there were even clangers dropped with the picture of the player himself!
So let’s start with the different backs, identified amongst collectors as ‘black oval’, ‘brown oval’, ‘double-line (or frame)’, ‘Address Photo’ and ‘Address Pinnace‘…
Occasionally there are cards which display no team name on the front, either at the top or at the bottom. In such cases, the team name was usually glued to the back of the card in the form of a little strip of paper, as below. Sometimes these were peeled off.
The picture and text on the front was often different from series to series. Here we have examples of the same player appearing for two different teams – same picture, different team name…
…sometimes the player name was right and the team was the same, but the team name was printed differently… and the picture is a slightly different size too…!
…sometimes there was simply no team at all…
…and here are examples of a different background…
…occasionally the printers got the name or the initials wrong…
…and here both the team and the player picture size are different!
Sometimes it’s a completely different person…
…sometimes it’s the same person with a completely different picture…
…sometimes they got the right name but the wrong player…
…sometimes it was COMPLETELY wrong …
…occasionally it was as simple as a number in a different position…
…or even just a full stop added after the number…
…and finally, the most famous card of all! Card 1328 A.R. Darvill (Ilford) should be 1828 and that’s why there is NO number 1828 in this series.
As you can see, it is the fact that there are so many anomalies that makes this such a difficult collection to complete! 😦
But now there is a bit of help…
I am eternally grateful to collector Alan Worthington who has kindly let me use his Excel spreadsheet cataloguing which backs are available for each card. I have taken the liberty of building in a ‘filter‘ system which allows you to sort it by each of the specifics – name, club, type of back, etc. I do, however, need to point out that this might not be 100% accurate as more cards come to light week by week, so if YOU can help to keep it up to date that would be a great help.
As it stands, the spreadsheet is downloadable for you to use but not to alter; any updates that you wish to add need to be communicated to me and I will update the file appropriately and alert people that a new version is available for download. I do hope that you understand that this is to protect Alan’s work and so that no-one can rip it off and pass/sell it on as their own. So if, say, you have card 2345 as a large black oval back, please let me know and I’ll add a ‘Y‘ to that ‘cell‘ of the spreadsheet so that we all know that that particular variation has been seen somewhere, by someone.
In order to use the filters and search options you will first need to ‘enable editing‘.
Update: It would appear that there is a huge number of large LF-sized cards with “Address: Pinnace” on the back which have no team name specified for each player; I am doing my best to add these in by scouring those available on eBay right now, so you’ll just have to bear with me. In fact, there are so many available with no team, name that I am now beginning to doubt that they are actually available WITH a team name!
- Version 1.0 (28th May, 2021)
- Version 2.0 (9th June, 2021) The appearance has been tweaked and no fewer than 9 LF “Black Oval” and 323 LF “Address Pinnace” back cards added, almost all of which have no team named
- Version 2.1 (22nd March, 2022) Just a few new additions
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU HAVE ANY ‘LF’ CARDS WHICH ARE NOT INCLUDED ON THE LATEST SPREADSHEET. I WILL NEED TO KNOW WHICH ‘BACK’ IT/THEY HAVE TOO.
Pinnace Cards 
According to Half time, a cabinet size team group could be obtained by sending off 100 k size cards in exchange for one. Only two are known to exist, crystal palace and your Huddersfield town!!!
Yes, I am aware of that. Bit of a ‘Holy Grail’ for me! 🙂
G.H.Douglas, card no.134, is available as Oldham, Burnley and Leicester. I have all three!
Excellent, Chris – thank you. This is just the kind of info that I hoped people would offer up here! 🙂
Card 304 WJ Smith I have as Queens Park Rangers. Hence the hooped shirt I guess
Yes I have a few Manchester city cards that are also listed with other clubs ie Pringle (st mirren) and Meredith (Manchester United ) I’m after George Utley who I think is usually listed as Sheffield United.
I have two for card no. 695 which are different players, both Preston: J. Elliott (which you have listed) & R. Woodhouse (who, btw, is also no. 316, but a different pic of him). Anyone heard of this variation?
Any chance you could sends scans, Sebastien?
Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I have an LF size Dave Halliday card 1302 with no team name on the front. It is grouped with the Dundee players in the Pinnace set; however, Halliday is wearing his St. Mirren kit in the photo.
Cheers, Andrew.
I’ll add this info into the next release of the database.