Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
eNews Issue #74 (June 2010) www.oldcardboard.com
Welcome to Old Cardboard, the most complete reference resource for information about collecting vintage baseball cards and related memorabilia. More information about this eNewsletter and its companion website and magazine are found at the bottom of this page.
Contents:
The following is a summary of vintage card events coming up in the next 30-45 days. For the most current listings on additional vintage card shows and auctions, see the Show and Auction Calendar on the Old Cardboard website. |
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June 2010 | ||
9 | Phone/Internet | Mile High Auction (see website for details). |
10 | Phone/Internet | SCP Auctions (see website for details). |
10 | Phone/Internet | Andy Madec Auctions (see website for details). |
12 | San Francisco | San Francisco Bay Area Show (see webpage for details). |
12 | Phone/Internet | Fusco Auctions (see website for details). |
17 | Phone/Internet | Imperial Sports (see website for details). |
22 | Phone/Internet | Collectible Classics CCA27 Auction (see website for details). |
22 | Internet | 2010 Old Cardboard Texas Hold'em Tourney #6 (details). |
30 | Phone/Internet | Clean Sweep Auctions (see website for details). |
July 2010 | ||
9-11 | Chantilly, VA | CSA Chantilly Show (see website for details). |
13 | Phone/Internet | Hunt Auctions (see website for details). |
27 | Internet | 2010 Old Cardboard Texas Hold'em Tourney #7 (details). |
2. Set Profile: T207 Brown Backgrounds (by Tim Newcomb)
Most of the biggest stars of the day, including Cobb, Mathewson, Wagner, Lajoie, Collins, Jackson, and Waddell are nowhere to be found, but the set does contain 13 Hall-of-Famers and several other sought-after players such as Smoky Joe Wood, the Cubans Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida, as well as Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte from the 1919 "Black Sox." T207 was issued during the 1912 baseball season by the American Tobacco Company (ATC), which had produced the popular T205 and T206 sets over the previous three years. It is now much scarcer than either of those sets. I estimate that for every 100 examples of the T206 card, there exist perhaps 50 examples of T205 cards, but only about 10 from the T207 series. Unlike T206, T207 cards contain vivid biographical summaries of the subjects, some of which indicate that those cards could not have been issued until well into the 1912 season.
As the card backs indicate, the cards were enclosed in packages of several different ATC products, the names of which (in most cases) are printed on the back, along with the factory where those cigarettes were manufactured. Little is known about the small number of cards that appear without any advertising (the "Anonymous backs"), which were distributed with unknown tobacco brands manufactured in Virginia and Louisiana. Not all collectors realize that these eight backs represent two distinct groups of cards. Recruit (Factory 240 and 606) and Napoleon backs appear on the backs of 150 of the 200 players represented in the set, but never with the other 50 players. Cards of the remaining 50 players, all quite scarce, appear with Broadleaf, Cycle, or Anonymous Factory 25 backs (along with a tiny number of Red Cross backs, of which there are fewer than 10 examples known). I sometimes refer to the former as Group 1 (Recruit-Napoleon, etc.) and the latter as Group 2 (Broadleaf-Cycle, etc.). The Anonymous Factory 3 back is the only one that is found on cards from both the Recruit-Napoleon and the Broadleaf-Cycle groups. In a survey of several thousand T207s that I performed in 2003-2004, I found that among the 150 Recruit-Napoleon cards, almost 97% appeared with Recruit backs, about 2% with Napoleon backs, and only 1% with Anonymous Factory 3 backs. Of the 50 Broadleaf-Cycle cards, the breakdown of backs was 51% Broadleaf, 21% Anonymous Factory 3, 20% Cycle, 8% Anonymous Factory 25, and less than half of 1% Red Cross. The set's 200 cards vary widely in scarcity. The 150 Recruit-Napoleon cards are the most common overall, but still exhibit a wide range of difficulty. A few players, including Carrigan, Ellis, Graham, Higgins, Kling, Nunamaker, Stovall, and Wood (listed alphabetically), are nearly as difficult as the average Broadleaf-Cycle card. I speculate that these variations are due to a two-stage release of Recruit cards: the "first series" of 100 cards, issued around Opening Day, became the most common cards. This was followed perhaps two months later by a second release of the remaining 50 Recruit cards, now including a small proportion of Napoleon and Anonymous Factory 3 backs. This "second series" was distributed much less widely, accounting for the variations in scarcity 100 years later. Of the 50 cards in the Broadleaf-Cycle category, the career descriptions of several players indicate that they were issued even later in the season, and thus can be considered as the set's "high numbers." All 50 of these players are at least somewhat scarce, but perhaps half are widely considered rarities and often fetch very high prices. These rarities include Adams, Almeida, Bauman, Butcher, Donlin, Donnelly, Downey, Fournier, Houser, Kuhn, Irv Lewis, Lowdermilk, McCarthy, Ward Miller, Mogridge, Nelson, Pelty, Peters, Ragan, Rasmussen, Saier, Sweeney, Tyler, and Woodburn. T207 contains several recognized card front variations. In three cases, neither variation is particularly difficult: Ray Fisher with blue or white cap, Jimmy Austin with or without a shirt insignia, George Mullin with or without a Detroit "D" on his cap. The Paddy Livingston card appears in three varieties: the small "C" insignia on his shirt is the most common, while the larger "C" and the "A" varieties are more difficult. The Irving Lewis card, perhaps the toughest in the entire set, exists in two forms, with or without an emblem on his sleeve. The "No emblem" Lewis is the more difficult of the two, though most collectors would be happy to acquire either one. Finally, a small number of T207 cards have been reported with back ink that appears distinctly brown rather than the typical black, although there is no consensus yet whether these cards qualify as true variations or are merely the result of a random printing anomaly. Note: A T207 Checklist and Gallery of all 200 players have recently been added to the Old Cardboard website. The checklist also identifies the back category for each of the 200 players.
References:
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