Dan,
Hollywood Picture Stars has long been a top collecting interest for me, for exactly all the reasons you and others have raised: a richly rewarding challenge, with wonderful card design, variation backs, American v Canadian sets, etc. Long ago completed an initial US set and then a Canadian set, but only then became aware of all those pesky variations! So am still knee-deep in this right now, going after variation sets. Am presuming it would be possible to complete the US set in either solely the red ink backs (album ad version) or the other. It's slow going at the moment.
There was a fellow on ebay 10 years ago and he was the unofficial custodian of the Shelby Gum Co. museum in Shelby, OH. Some kind of archive sponsored by the city or country, not sure. Anyway, you could always count on him to bid on every HPS lot to come up, also Shelby bicycles, etc and so forth. At one time, he was sitting on a stockpile of sets in various permutations, albums, etc. I was never able to convince him to sell me an album. Still unable to ever add an album to my collection -- ANYBODY GOT ONE TO SELL/TRADE?
Also, some possible card front variations have been alluded to, in the text at the bottom of the page, under the star's picture. Don't know if this variation occurs on what is otherwise the same card (meaning two cards to collect of a single star, one referring to specific Hollywood production or studio, one not) or if it is a difference noted between how different stars' cards were done across the set, but not generating more collectable 'targets'.
Lastly, the numbering is different for the American set vs the Canadian . . . One of the reasons there aren't any mixed sets floating around, like there are for Sea Raiders, for instance.
