This series of twelve monochrome cards was published by the Chicago based Commercial Colortype Company, and each of the cards has the company's mark in the lower left of the front of the card.
From about 1905 until at least 1916, Commercial Colortype was one of the largest printer of postcards in the country. Their very distinctive "Post Card", in the style shown below, can be found on many different town views, greeting cards, humorous cards, and others. Some of their cards have the company name: others do not. Some of the cards, particularly the town views are numbered. Numbers are known at least up into the eighty thousands. Occasionally, other Commercial Colortype cards are found that depict Boy Scouts. They are clearly not part of this series. The image used for #12 (Typical Scouting Scene) appears on a beautifully tinted card published for the Redpath-Brockway Chautauqua and may be a clue to the origin of the series.
There were three identifiable printings for the cards:
Type I - The backs of the cards were printed in reddish-brown (henna) ink. Each carries an inscription that reads "Be Prepared! This is the Motto of the Boy Scouts of America." This is followed by a paragraph that gives a description that is sometimes only loosely related to the activity depicted on the front of the cards.
Type II - The backs of the cards are identical in content and in format to the cards of Type I. However, they were printed in black ink. It has been the author's observation that of all the thousands of cards printed by Commercial Colortype, by far the most common color used for the backs was henna.
Type III - The backs of the cards are printed in henna, but they have no inscription at all.
Some collectors believe that the order given here coincides with the order of the printings. They argue that Commercial Colortype began with the henna back as they did for most of their cards, switched to the black briefly when war shortages made the colored ink difficult to obtain, and then dropped the inscription when the Boy Scouts of America, armed with their Congressional Charter of June, 1916 asked them to refrain from using their name. Eventually they stopped producing the cards completely. All of the cards are relatively rare today and to acquire a complete set requires a great deal of persistence.