This little gem was sold last weekend via PWCC Auctions. The auction boasted an impressive array of T206s, and this one was kind of buried among the offerings. It was listed as “Ghost Image” due to the dark rectangle that appears over the front of the bottom 90% of the card. When I first saw it, I was pretty sure I knew what the faint lighter image on the on the ghost overprint was, but I needed to verify. I am not particularly good with Photo Shop, but I thought it might be fun to show the process I used to figure out who the ghost was anyway
I thought it looked like the ghost overprint was upside down, so first I turned the image upside down:
In this particular case, I had a hunch of who the ghost might be right when I first saw the card. However, there have been plenty of times when I haven’t been so sure when looking at a T206 with a ghost image. In those cases, the first step in the sleuthing process is to identify any distinguishing marks (or in this case, the spots on the ghost overprint which are lighter than the rest of the ghost).
Once you’ve found some spots to look for, you need to go through other cards that were printed in the same series. In this case, Gibson is a 150-350 subject and this card has a Piedmont 150 back. So, if the ghost overprint features another T206 pose, it will be one of the other 155 poses from the Piedmont 150 checklist. When I am searching for a possible match, I like to use the checklists at T206resource.com and click on the scan links at the right side of the page. You can scroll through the entire 150-350 Series checklist on this page.
Like I mentioned earlier, I had a hunch right away. I pulled up this pose, and found an immediate match:
I wish I had the Photo Shop skills of Chris Browne or Erick Summers, but unfortunately this is the best I can do. If you look closely, you can see that the previously identified lighter spots on Gibson line up perfectly with Eddie Cicotte’s right arm and the creases in his pants. How this card might have come to exist is a mystery to me. I suppose the lighter ghost print could have come first, with the printer’s realizing that the sheet was placed upside down and then turning it around and printing the entire card again. This fun error card sold for $249.83. I imagine most bidders were not sure what they were looking at, but the winner most likely knew that the ghost was Cicotte.
This copy sold via Love of the Game Auctions for $15, 340 in 2013
As a T206 back collector, I tend to think about cards in terms of value. Which backs are over-valued? Which are under-valued? Which cards are over-rated, and which are under-appreciated? My favorite part of collecting this set is searching for value and scarcity, especially when it is hiding in plain sight.
It can be hard to impress T206 collectors. There are hundreds of specific front/back combos that exist in quantities of less than 10 and are met with a collective yawn from collectors when they hit the market. If a Cycle 350 Shad Barry SGC 30 goes to auction, it’s likely to sell for less than $100. If a Demmitt Polar Bear SGC 30 goes to auction, it will probably sell for around $1,000. PSA and SGC have combined to grade 4 copies of the Barry Cycle 350 and 278 copies of Demmitt Polar Bear. Pretty crazy when you really look at the numbers.
Obviously the Demmitt, O’Hara, and Magie cards are more highly sought after than a random Cycle 350 with a low population. The main reason is that many set collectors feel the need to own a Magie, O’Hara and Demmitt for their sets. However, there are plenty of T206 collectors who are not necessarily attempting to complete the set. For those people, I really wonder if the massive price tags for these 3 cards makes sense.
PSA has graded 118 copies of the Magie error (which only exists with a Piedmont 150 back). SGC has graded 62 of them. So, according to the Pop Reports, there are 180 Magie errors out there. Of course there have probably been some crossovers, but there are probably some raw copies out there too.
Sold for $1,028 via PWCC Auctions over the weekend
A few days ago, this PSA 4 Sherry Magee portrait with El Principe de Gales back sold for $1,028 via PWCC Auctions. PSA and SGC have combined to grade only 11 copies of this card.
Sold for $2,022 via Goodwin & Co. Auctions in 2016
Earlier in the year, Goodwin and Co. auctioned off the above Old Mill Magee portrait in an SGC 40 holder. It sold for $2,022. PSA and SGC have graded a combined 4 copies of this card.
The Pop Report Numbers for Magee Portrait with Hindu and Sovereign 150 backs are similarly low in comparison to the iconic Magie Error:
The Old Mill above is so rare that it’s almost non-existent, and yet it sold for just 13% of the $15,340 that the PSA 3 Magie pictured at the top of this article went for. We know that there is more to value than the supply side of the equation, but I can’t help but come to the conclusion that the Magie Error is over-valued. As long as collectors continue to covet the Magie Error to the extent they have historically, prices will remain high. With more information available to us via the Pop Reports, it’s possible that prices will adjust over time to be more in line with actual scarcity (or the lack thereof).
I recently came across this beauty. Since my most recent article concerns the printing process for T206s, it seemed fitting that I write up a little post about it.
At first glance, it looks like the back has a Wet Sheet Transfer from another Sweet Caporal back. However, if that were the case, the transfer would be reversed and the words would be backwards. I’m not 100% sure what caused this. But, the fact that the second, lighter printing is aligned in the same direction and slightly offset leads me to believe that it was printed at the time of production. My best guess is the backs were printed once as normal, and then printed again, except that the ink on the blanket was mostly gone and just shows up as a faint shadow on the card above.
I haven’t seen another card like this one, but it does remind me of a pair of double stamped Sweet Caporal 350 factory 30 backs I have seen in the past. I once owned this McCormick. I also know of a Matty McIntyre with the same double printed back. I believe both are from the same sheet.
The obvious difference is that it appears the McCormick back was actually fully printed twice, as the ink is almost as dark on the second printing (slightly above the first).
If anyone has seen any similar cards, I’d love to hear about it. Please shoot me a message via the contact link at the top of the page or via email at luke@thatT206life.com.
*This article features insight on the printing process used to create T206s courtesy of Steve Birmingham. Thanks Steve!
The Piedmont 150 Cylinder Print Ghosts are among my favorite T206 print oddities. They are unique in that the ghost image on the back is a crystal clear mirror image of the front. Cylinder prints are not exclusive to Piedmont 150 backs, but the most high profile Cylinder Prints are all from presumably the same Piedmont 150 sheet. There are some blank backs that have portions of the front image reversed on the back and I’ve seen a couple Piedmont 350s, but those are a subject for a different article.
To the best of my knowledge (and memory) this is the current checklist of known Piedmont 150 Cylinder Print Ghosts:
Bowerman
Chance red portrait (there are actually two of these)
Clarke portrait
Elberfeld NY
Gilbert
Overall portrait
Shaw St. Louis
Weimer (two of these are known)
Young bare hand shows
Here are some recent sales of the known copies:
Clarke portrait SGC 60 – SOLD for $4,200 in 2016 via REA
Elberfeld NY GAI 4.5 – SOLD for $2,160 in 2016 via REA
Young bare hand shows PSA 5 – SOLD for $2,350 in 2008 via REA
In order to understand how these beauties were created, I reached out to my friend Steve Birmingham, an expert on printing processes. His explanation is as follows:
Cylinder prints can happen for anything printed by offset lithography. Interesting fact- A cylinder print on an earlier flatbed press is what led to the invention of offset lithography. There are two basic sorts of press, flatbed offset and rotary. There’s proof that in general T206s were printed on flatbed presses, so I’ll stick to those at first.
On the flatbed press the prepared stone is placed on the bed. It has areas that are coated with a substance that repels water and the limestone will hold water. The stone is dampened, and then inked. On most flatbed presses there’s a carriage that moves the stone across the dampening , inking and offset rollers/cylinders. Once inked the inked image is transferred to the blanket. Next, the cylinder with the blanket turns up against the impression cylinder which may also have a rubber covering. The paper is squeezed in between them, making the image print from the blanket to the paper. And all is well!
Except the flatbed presses were mostly hand fed, and occasionally a paper sheet wouldn’t be fed in to print. In that case, the image would transfer to the impression cylinder. The next sheet would then get a reversed impression on the opposite side as well as the normal impression on the correct side.
And that’s where cylinder prints come from.
Of note, generally at the time the colors were printed one at a time. Being an accident the cylinder impression should only be one color. I’ve seen some indication that a two color press may have been used, but so far no two color cylinder impressions. A genuine one would be a real prize, as proof that a 2 color press was actually used.
Identification is usually pretty easy, as the impression will have lots of detail compared to a normal offset transfer, (Or WST as most people call them.) It is possible to have a fully detailed normal offset transfer, it just requires quite a bit of pressure on the stack of sheets. Most times there isn’t enough remaining wetness or enough pressure.
On more modern presses the impression cylinder is smooth metal with no rubber coating. But with the blanket being rubber, cylinder Impressions can still happen. Also the plate is on a roller and there’s no moving carriage, just a few more rollers.
*The bulk of this article (all of the technical stuff) was written by Steve Birmingham. Thank you Steve!
A fun oddity to keep an eye for are the “Big Factory 30s”. Certain poses from the 150-350 series can be found with a large “30” right in the middle at the bottom of the back, like this Tannehill above. It appears that the large “30” was used to differentiate sheets of Sweet Caporal 350 factory 30 from Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25, and vice versa.
There have not been any of these “Big Factory Numbers” found on Sweet Caporal 150 backs that I know of. My guess is there were some problems in the print shop during 150 series production that lead to them adding these large numbers to the sheets for the 350 series, so that the process of getting them out to the correct factories would run more smoothly. This article focuses on the Big Factory 30s, mainly because we have more data about them. There are 22 different poses that have been found with a “Big Factory 30”, while I only know of two players who have been found with a “Big Factory 25” (Ames portrait and Steinfeldt portrait).
Here are the 22 poses which have been found with Sweet Caporal 350 “Big Factory 30s”. I expect that more will be discovered, but for now this is the known checklist. Thank you to Erick Summers for keeping track of these over on the net54 forum.
Ames (portrait)
Beaumont
Clarke (portrait)
Cobb (bat on shoulder)
Dahlen (Brooklyn)
Dooin
Durham
Gilbert
Hemphill
Johnson (portrait)
Jones, Fielder (portrait)
Keeler (with bat)
Killian (pitching)
Mathewson (portrait)
McGraw (no cap)
Merkle (portrait)
Overall (portrait)
Seymour (batting)
Spade
Steinfeldt (portrait)
Tannehill (“L” on front)
Wagner (bat left)
Erick and others have been keeping track of these oddities for the last few years in this thread on net54baseball.com. If you have or know of any Sweet Caporal 350s with Big Factory Numbers at the bottom (either 25 or 30) please stop by that thread and add your card or scan to the list.
For the most part, each of these checklist entries represents a unique card. However, some of the above poses have been found more than once. I have seen three different Steinfeldts for instance. Because not everyone knows about these cards, there are probably quite a few of them out there that have not been noticed yet. Often the top of the “30” is just barely visible, and doesn’t look like much more than a bit of red ink. This is another reason why these cards tend to fly under the radar.
These are some of the cards from my first try at collecting the entire T206 set
I’ve had a really busy last couple weeks with family stuff and haven’t been able to devote the amount of time that I normally do to the site. I don’t have a new article ready to go for today, so I figured I would write a little blog post. A recent post on net54baseball.com caught my attention. Titled “Collecting: The Journey or the Destination?”, it examined our motivations as collectors (click here to read it). It’s a topic that I have thought a lot about and find quite fascinating.
About 7 years ago, when I got back into collecting, I asked myself a lot of questions about what I wanted to collect, and why. I found a handful of T206 that I had acquired as a teenager and pretty much fell in love with them immediately. I spent a lot of time researching the set online. As I scrolled through posts on net54, I kept seeing incredible cards and collections posted by the members of the site. I felt some jealousy, but mainly I felt discouraged. I remember thinking, “Why should I even start collecting these cards, when I have no chance of ever having a collection like xxxxxxx on net54?”
As I was thinking about how I should proceed, I realized that I was feeling jealous and deflated just because of looking at some scans of cards online. Then it occurred to me, “Do I even need to own the cards? Why? Could I just collect scans?” If scans could make me jealous, maybe I could just assemble the greatest scan collection of all-time? After some more thought, I decided that it really wasn’t about scans or what cards other people owned. It’s about the connection to the game I love, and a bygone era. The scan collecting idea was a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but I am an analytical person by nature, and I’m used to trying to look at something from all angles in order to understand it. When you do that, collecting sure seems like an odd activity (especially when you look at it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t collect). There is a lot of joking amongst collectors that we all have a touch OCD, and there is probably some truth to it.
It seems that most collectors are all about the hunt. In other words, searching for the cards they want is what brings the most happiness and satisfaction. It’s very common for someone to spend a long time putting together a set, only to sell it soon after in order to work on a new project. A smaller percentage of collectors enjoy owning their cards more than searching for the cards they need.
When I first started collecting, I was all about the hunt. I was working on a lower grade T206 set and was trying to complete it as quick as I could. One day, I realized that approach was not working for me. I was searching ebay for new cards every evening after work and placing some bids. The problem was that on my desk, about a foot away from my mouse, were two bubble mailers. I knew that the mailers contained a John McGraw finger in air in Fair condition and a Bob Groom in similar condition. In the two weeks they had been sitting there, I hadn’t felt the inclination to open up the packages and look at them. At that point I knew my priorities were not in line with what would actually make me happy. I sold off the majority of the lower grade cards I had acquired just to check a card off my checklist and took a break. I still loved T206, but I wanted to find a new focus that I would enjoy more.
This is one of my favorite cards in my current collection
For me, back collecting ended up being what I was I really passionate about. Over time, as I built my new collection (I sold all but about 10 cards from that first collection, keeping the ones with sentimental value) I began to enjoy the actual owning of my cards more and more. Now, I enjoy looking at my cards much more than searching for new ones (though I still enjoy that too). In my opinion the reason for the change is threefold. First, I made a point of trying to align my collecting focus with what actually appeals to me, rather than trying to collect the set in a way that may work for other people, but didn’t for me. Second, I made a conscious effort to find ways to enjoy my collection more. I researched the players, I dove into all the old threads on net54 to learn as much as I could about the set. And most importantly, I spent more time enjoying the cards I already owned than I had in the past. The third reason inevitably follows the first. Over time, my collection improved and as it did, it was more fun to look through and enjoy. I imagine this occurs with all new collectors. It takes a little while before your collection feels substantial and exciting. I imagine that advanced collectors with huge, impressive collections spend a lot more time enjoying the fruits of their labor than searching for new items. That’s just a guess though. Maybe some day I’ll find out.
The Schulte Chicago Proof is one of my favorite cards. I referenced this card in an earlier post titled “Examining the T206 Joe Tinker Hands on Knees “Chicago” Variation”. That article is worth a read, but the gist of it is that a few copies of Tinker hands on knees have been found with “CHICAGO” printed across his chest, and “CUBS” printed over “CHICAGO”. When the Tinker was discovered, the Schulte Chicago Proof was already known to the hobby.
In 1997, Keith Olbermann wrote an article for the Vintage & Classic Baseball Collector magazine entitled “How Many Cards in the T206 Set?”. The article included a scan of the Schulte Proof, which Mr. Olbermann owns. The article is available online courtesy of t206resource.com. You can read it here. The existence of the Schulte lent legitimacy to the Tinker when collectors were initially skeptical of it.
This is the first Tinker “Chicago” that was discovered in 2011
Schulte front view has always been a favorite of T206 collectors, as evidenced by the premium paid for it over other “commons”. I use quotations around that word because Schulte was an incredible ballplayer. He was one of the elite sluggers of the era and his 1911 season is the stuff of legend. He scored 105 runs to go along with 30 doubles, 21 triples, 21 home runs. He knocked in 107 runs and posted an OPS of .918.
To me, Schulte front view has quite a bit of mystique due to the fact that there are two different 1-of-1s featuring Schulte. The proof is the only one in existence, but it may not even be the most famous Schulte front view front/back combo. One of the biggest mysteries of the T206 set is the Piedmont 350 Schulte Front View. For a long time, it was assumed that Schulte was a 150-Only Subject. When the lone Piedmont 350 was found, it threw that idea out the window. That card is probably the biggest head-scratcher in the entire set in my opinion. It doesn’t fit any pattern, and it’s crazy that only one survived. I wrote an article about that card, titled “T206 Wildfire Schulte Front View Piedmont 350 – Is It a 1 of 1?” which can be read here.
The proof and Piedmont 350 are out of reach for most of us, but we can settle for trying to find a Schulte front view with Hindu or Sovereign 150 backs. Both are quite tough to find, but by no means impossible.
Black and White scan from Lew Lipset’s Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards
I recently picked up this Claude Ritchey Old Mill. I bought it based on a very small scan, so all I could tell was that the card looked to be in pretty good condition and the background was quite dark. When it arrived in the mail, I immediately noticed the right side of the back. At first I thought the little black lines were some sort of transfer from another card, or possibly foreign ink. Upon closer inspection, it became pretty clear that it was printed at the same time as the rest of the black ink on the back.
I knew exactly who to contact to find out more. I sent an email to my friend Steve Birmingham, who is an expert on printing processes. His reply was so interesting that I wanted to use the info for an article. Steve graciously agreed, so here is our correspondence. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did!
Me: “Have you ever seen this strange “print jump” (for lack of a better term) that happened on the right border of the back of this card?”
Steve:
I haven’t seen that exact thing on Ritchey, but I’m pretty sure I know what it is. I’ve seen another card that’s similar, on Criger there are some Piedmont backs that show the right upper curl of the back duplicated.
There are only a few possibilities for that with lithography. The two I can think of are equally likely.
First option:
The plates were probably laid out using transfers. Like ruboffs only a bit more involved. If the transfer got set down in the wrong spot and they didn’t totally erase it OR if the transfer didn’t adhere properly and they didn’t erase it completely before putting down the replacement, there would be remnants of it that would print.
Second option:
The plates did wear over time, after a certain number of impressions the stone would need to be resurfaced and new transfers laid down. Again, an incomplete resurfacing would leave remnants of the earlier image, and those would print.
At first I thought it was very thin areas that peeled during a soak and got pressed down out of place. But the back only scan shows no sign of it at all.
The stamp guys look to see a second identical copy, as proof that it’s a plate fault and not some printing quirk. There should be another one out there somewhere.
There are ways it could happen as a one time printing error, but they’re all a bit of a reach in the likely/not likely equation.
After receiving this email from Steve, I looked at the other Ritchey Old Mill that I own, and a scan of one I owned previously. Neither had a similar “print jump”. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but I found some interesting marks including three players from the 150-350 series with identical marking on the back in the exact same spot. That may be another topic for a different day.
This next email from Steve is really cool in that he lays out a systematic approach to looking at print marks and oddities. I completely missed most of the marks he references, but they were clear as day when I went back to take a closer look.
Nice pickup, I haven’t seen one before except for the Criger Piedmont.
Finding a second copy is always more difficult on tougher cards, and finding progressive varieties tougher still.
By progressive, I mean something like that Ritchey showing a repaired flaw. The press operator can fix small stuff like that by stoning it off, which is basically using a limestone stick like a crayon to remove the oil attracting image area. That’s probably how the really rare Doyle was created, the error was spotted and the stone fixed during production.
A Ritchey OM that has border gaps where the extra bits of border are would be a probable repair, especially if it had some identical identifier on the front showing it was the same position. There aren’t any of the layout marks at the halfway points of the front border, but there are a couple possible marks that would identify the position as the same one. At the upper left there’s a dark blue heart shaped mark, at the left side of the lower border there’s another blue mark, and there’s a brown spot on the pants at about mid thigh. It’s hard to tell if they’re printed or just random ink spots, but another OM from the same spot on the sheet would probably have at least one of those marks.
A couple bonuses- There are a bunch of other marks on the back that are less obvious, but are spaced as far right from a line as the obvious ones.
And there’s a faint group of marks that don’t fit the OM back that I think are remnants of the P150 scratch. I’ll have to look at the scans I have, but the marks show as lines in the lower left ornament, through the L in large, the top of the B in Base ball, and possibly very faintly in the G above that.
It’s either leftover from the P150 scratch, or is its own damage.
The gray on the front is printed very heavily too. None of the scans on Ebay are good enough for me to tell if it’s a different gray layer than the 150’s, but the sky with the dark blue pattern is almost always a 350 back. (There’s a P150 with that sky on ebay now, but graded A by SGC so it may be rebacked. )
A different Ritchey Old Mill back without the “print jump”
Well, I’m off to go examine all of my 150-350 series Old Mill backs. If I find anything interesting, I’ll be sure to let you know. I want to give a big thanks to Steve for providing the content for this impromptu post. Thanks Steve!
I want to thank Ed McCollum again for sharing the story of his collection. If you haven’t read his article, The Rebuilt T206 Howe McCormick Collection, which I published last weekend, you can read it here. After reading his article, I had a few additional questions I wanted to ask him. Here they are, along with Ed’s answers:
Do you have any speculation as to how Howe’s cards came to market?
My current guess is that the collection came to the market sometime around 1969 – seven years before his death. I’ve recently purchased a group of nine cards from a collector that had Howe’s stamp on them. He remembers buying them from Wirt Gammon of Florida in 1969. I’m told Wirt was one of the hobby giants in those days and I would speculate that he is the one who bought Howe’s collection. Previously, I had purchased a few cards from collectors who had complete or near complete T206 collections, and both of those gentlemen told me they had started their collections in the mid-70s. That sort of made sense, since Howe died in 76, but finding out about the cards purchased in 1969 makes me wonder exactly when Howe decided to part with the cards.
Has this stamp only appeared on T206’s?
No, I have heard from two collectors who have E96 cards with the same stamp. But from these two individuals, I only know of a total of six of those cards. The first gentleman wanted to sell me his four, so I could have “the complete Howe McCormick collection,” then about three years later the second gentleman told me he had E96s with the stamp on his cards, and wondered if I had ever run across any more. He and I still exchange emails about our cards and he is quick to let me know when he spots a T206 with the stamp.
Did it appear that Howe had a collection strategy?
It would appear his only collecting strategy was getting as many cards as he possibly could, no matter what. Of the 311 I have, there are 238 that I have one card of the player/pose, 59 I have two copies of the player in that pose, 12 cards that I have three of in the same player/pose, and two cards I have four copies of the same player/pose. Duplicate cards didn’t seem to bother him.
Something of an oddity is that I have three copies of Lundgren/Chicago, which is considered a tougher card to find, and while I only own two of them, there is a third copy of Ed Foster with a Hindu back that has traded hands several times in the last several years (I don’t know the current owner of that card). There are many more common cards I haven’t seen, one example being Cobb/red portrait. Yet there are two green portraits and an absolutely beautiful Cobb bat off shoulder with the stamp. I don’t own any of those, but do know the owners of two out of the three.
Vaughn Monroe’s Moonmaids – Betty is second from the left
Were you able to find anything out about Howe’s children?
Yes, he and his wife Thelma had a daughter, named Betty McCormick. From what I’ve heard from Howe’s cousin, and what I’ve found online, she had a beautiful singing voice, and made her career in show business. She was a member of singer Vaughn Monroe’s Moonmaids, a big band era group. (Vaughn Monroe is singing “Let it Snow” during the closing credits of one of my favorite Christmas movies, Die Hard.) Sometime after leaving the Moonmaids, she added an “e” to her name, becoming Bettye McCormick, and went on to sing with others including Burt Bacharach, whom she appeared on Broadway with in a short-lived musical. After the late 70s, she sort of disappears, until an obituary in 2005 that lists her cause of death as dementia.
Does Howe’s store/home still exist?
Sadly, no. Net54 board member David Polakoff, who is from the Gainesville area, did a lot of research on my behalf when he heard about the collection, and was able to trace/correct the original address of 300 W. Main Street to 300 W. Main Street S. (I had once called the mayor’s office in Gainesville asking about the address and had been told that Main Street ran North/South, not East/West. I kind of gave up after that.) David’s research pinpointed the location to what is now a parking lot for several city/state buildings. However, the store/home was located just a block away from a McCormick Street, which we are guessing was named after Howe’s grandfather, who started a church in the early days of Gainesville.
Have you made trades with other collectors to get Howe-stamped cards from their collections?
I have, although that is not as easy as it sounds. With the exception of seven cards from my first run at a T206 collection (given to me by the wife for a first anniversary, a 10th anniversary and several cards my son picked out for me when his mom would take him to a card shop), the only cards I have are Howe-stamped cards. So it doesn’t make much sense to trade a Howe-stamped card for a Howe-stamped card, when honestly, I’d want them both. So trades have taken up to six months to pull off, when looking for a certain card with a back in at least as good condition, but that doesn’t have a stamp on the back. But it has always been worth it.
Are there any that you weren’t able to obtain initially, but then years later were able to find?
Back in 2009, Mastro Auctions had a near complete T206 set (520 cards) at auction, with many of the cards listed as MK. I contacted them, just out of curiosity, and 50 of the 520 cards had Howe’s stamp. Trust me, one, it was a shock, and two, there is no way I would ever be able to afford to bid on a near complete set of cards. So Mastro was nice enough to pass along a message to the winner of the lot, where I explained I was trying to rebuild Howe’s collection, and ask them to work with me of at least several of the cards. Over the next year-and-a-half, as the winner broke up the lot and sold it on eBay, I was able to win 39 of those auctions. In the five years following that, I was able to acquire six more of those cards as they continued to change hands at other auctions (I always download the images of cards as they come up on eBay, so in case I don’t win the lot, I have a record of what it looked like, exactly where the stamp is located on the card, any other card damage, etc.). Four of the five cards still missing are Southern League players, all with a Hindu back on the card. Over time, those four cards all ended up in the hands of the same collector, who just last year, auctioned off his entire Southern-Leaguer-with-Hindu-back collection. I believe the lot had 48 cards, if memory serves correctly. Again, I wouldn’t be able to afford a lot of rare backs like that, and unfortunately, although REA was kind enough to pass a message on the to the winner, they have never reached out.
It seems that you value each card in the collection the same as any other. Would you say that’s accurate?
There are some cards that I would say are more favorite than others, but that would be because of the story behind them (who told me about it, what trade I had to make to pull this off, the three Saturday Evening Post cards that use the different stamp). Honestly, it is not about the player on the front, or the tobacco brand on the back, its more the thrill of finding the card, and doing what I can to reunite it with the others. Sadly, I’ve never run across a card in “real life,” meaning I’m at a show and see one and start the process of buying. Every card so far has been found through the online auctions and websites. There is enough of an “Oh my gosh, there’s one!” moment when I find them online, don’t know what would happen if I just happened to be sorting through a stack at a show and found one.
Just a final thought …
Probably the greatest thing to come from this project or quest or whatever you would call it has been meeting all the collectors who have been so willing to help with a collection that isn’t even theirs. Any given week, I hear from between 10 and 20 people who have seen one of these cards on an auction site, were looking through their or a friend’s collection and found one, even people who hear about it and just want to know more about why in the world am I doing it. More than likely, I’ll never meet most of these people, even though I consider them friends (sort of like Facebook, but on a whole different level). One of these years, I hope to be able to attend the National again (I’ve only been once, back in 1994 while working on my first collection) and be able to put a face to, and give a handshake to all the friend I’ve made through this collection.
I am thrilled to present a new guest-article, written by Ed McCollum. I have been wanting to tell this story since back before I started this website. I brainstormed a list of 50 or so ideas for articles and this was right at the top of the list. Ed’s rebuilt Howe McCormick Collection is my favorite T206 project. It’s an incredibly unique labor of love. Initially, I figured I would write the story, but after chatting with Ed about the project, I thought it would be really cool if Ed wrote the story himself, assuming he was willing. Luckily for us, he was. Enjoy! – Luke
My first card with a Howe McCormick stamp on it came as quite a disappointment.
It was 1991, and I was in the process of building a complete set of T206s, while along the way trying to find as many of the different tobacco brand backs as I could afford. When a Hindu-backed George Davis, listed in VG-EX condition showed up in the classifieds of Sports Collectors Digest, and at a very reasonable price, I jumped on it. Three weeks later, when the card finally arrived, it had this huge, ugly stamp across the back with someone’s name and address. A call to the dealer convinced me that you couldn’t get an otherwise VG-E condition rare-backed card at that price, unless it had some flaw. So in the binder it went with all the others.
Jump to 2007. I was still working on that complete set, but the realization that I would never finish it had set in. Still, every night I’d look online for cards I didn’t have that might fit my budget. A George Hunter card with a Piedmont back and what looked like the same stamp caught my attention. I hadn’t thought about that stamped card in years, but pulled out the binder, and yes, it was the same. So why not bid on this one, and have two cards with the same stamp? I bid and won.
Within a matter of days, a post appeared on the net54baseball.com website asking people to show their cards that had either unusual marks or stamps on them. I posted my two, telling of the gap in years between finding them, and soon had several emails from other members, stating they had one too, and would I want to trade or purchase from them? After all, why not find out how many we could find? And that started my project in earnest.
By the 100-year anniversary of the issue of the T206 set in 2009, I had 132 cards with Howe’s stamp on the back. I’d sold my original set of almost 200 cards and used the funds from their sale to fund my new set. And since the mark on the back was a qualifier for a lower grade from any grading company, the new cards I was acquiring came at a lower cost than many I would have needed to complete a real set of T206s.
Curiosity had also gotten the better of me, as I tried to figure out exactly who was Howe McCormick? Through the years, and with the help of other collectors, I’ve been able to piece together that Howe was born on July 31, 1895 in Gainesville, Florida to parents who owned a market. The market, which was both the family business and home, did a booming business in tobacco. Hopefully that explains how a 14-year old would have so many cards. Draft records show he enlisted in the Army in 1919, was discharged two years later to the same address, but by the 1930 census, he was a married father of one, and he had a different home address.
It wasn’t until 2013 that I finally found a photo of Howe online. Listed as a sophomore, he was shown in the Alachuan year book for 1913 (Gainesville High School), both in the class photo and as part of the school band. Finally, photographic proof of the man whose cards I was still continuing to find with great regularity.
In 2015, I was finally able to make contact with a second cousin of Howe’s who still lives in Florida. Howe’s grandfather was a rather important minister in the early days of Gainesville, and the family and the church he founded have stayed in close contact. With the help of a net54baseball.com board member, I was able to contact the church, who connected me with the cousin. He was able to verify some of my information, such as Howe’s death in 1976, his wife’s death four years later and the identity of their child, who had changed the spelling of her name during a show business career. I later found that she died just two years before I started to collect nothing but her father’s cards.
The cousin was also kind enough to share the only three photos his family had of Howe, including a photo of the store interior, showing the uncle that Howe was named after, and lots of tobacco products seen sitting on the shelves.
Through the years, I’ve also discovered Howe had two different stamps he used to mark his cards. Found on almost all the cards is a two-line stamp, with his name in all capital letters, followed by the address of the store/home. But on three of the cards, a stamp appears using his first name (Ulrich), H as his middle initial, his last name, followed by the word Agent. The second line reads Saturday Evening Post, and the third line gives the home address. Apparently, Howe was an entrepreneur, selling magazines while a youth. Perhaps one evening he used the rubber stamp from his business on the back of the cards, instead of his personal stamp. Interestingly enough, those three are all in green, while all the others are in some shade of faded black.
As of now, early March 2017, I have 311 cards in my rebuilt collect collection of Howe’s cards. 273 are Piedmont, 16 are Hindu, and 22 are Old Mill. There are another 30 that I know exist, either in the collections of others the cards have significant meaning to, or that have been lost in auctions where I couldn’t manage the high bid. And about once a month, a new one surfaces, meaning I still need to check the Internet and auction sites daily.
If you happen to have any cards with Howe’s stamp on the back, I’d really like to hear from you, whether you are interested in selling or just letting me know so I can add your card to my data. Please contact Luke on this site.
, she had a beautiful singing voice, and made her career in show business. She was a member of singer Vaughn Monroe’s Moonmaids, a big band era group. (Vaughn Monroe is singing “Let it Snow” during the closing credits of one of my favorite Christmas movies, Die Hard.) Sometime after leaving the Moonmaids, she added an “e” to her name, becoming Bettye McCormick, and went on to sing with others including Burt Bacharach, whom she appeared on Broadway with in a short-lived musical. After the late 70s, she sort of disappears, until an obituary in 2005 that lists her cause of death as dementia.
