blog – Page 6 – That T206 life

The Incredible St. Louis T206 Drum Find of 2009

Luke December 10, 2016

In 2009, Legendary Auctions brought to auction an absolutely stunning group of 41 T206 Drum backs (and an additional 8 T205 Drums). This massive find was dubbed “The St. Louis Find” after the city the cards were found in*. This was by far the largest assemblage of Drum backs ever found. The cards are in amazing shape. They have stunning colors, and only a couple have creasing. Each card has corner wear that is remarkably consistent throughout the group, suggesting they were enjoyed a lot over the years but treated with care. They were auctioned off in April and June of 2009 and fetched prices between $2,040 and $7,200.

As you can see, they are a breath-taking group. I wanted to save the scans all in one place for posterity. Here is the entire list in alphabetical order:

Arellanes PSA 3
Atz PSA 2
Bescher portrait PSA 3.5
Charles PSA 3
Doolan batting PSA 3
Egan PSA 3
Elberfeld fielding PSA 3
Fletcher PSA 2
Gasper PSA 2
Graham, Peaches PSA 3

Hoblitzell PSA 2
Hofman PSA 3
Howell portrait PSA 3
Jordan batting PSA 2
Knabe PSA 3
Knight portrait PSA 3
Kroh PSA 3
Lake no ball PSA 3
LaPorte PSA 3
Lennox PSA 3

Manning pitching PSA 3
Marshall PSA 3
Milan PSA 3
Mitchell, Mike PSA 3
Mullen portrait PSA 2.5
Oakes PSA 3
Perring PSA 3
Pfeister PSA 2.5
Phelps PSA 2
Quinn PSA 3

Rhoades hands at chest PSA 1
Schmidt portrait PSA 3
Smith, Heinie PSA 3
Steinfeldt with bat PSA 2.5
Titus PSA 2.5
Wagner, Heinie bat on right shoulder PSA 2
Wilhelm with bat PSA 3
Willett PSA 2.5
Willetts PSA 2
Willis with bat PSA 3
Wiltse pitching PSA 2

* St. Louis has continued to be a hotbed for Drum finds in the intervening years. Four more were found there earlier in 2016 (Hayden, LaPorte, Schreck, & Starr).

I want to thank cardtarget.com for saving these scans so they could be enjoyed 7 years later. cardtarget.com tracks completed sales in an easy-to-use and well-organized interface. I highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t yet.

Back Scarcity in the T206 150-350 series Part Three: Sweet Caporal 150 factory 649

Luke February 9, 2017 December 7, 2016

The Sweet Caporal 150 factory 649 subset is quite an anomaly in comparison to other Sweet Caporal backs. The American Tobacco Company obviously wanted to start including cards in their Sweet Caporal product that was coming out of factory 649. It’s interesting that they selected so few cards to be released in this way. The Sweet Caporal 150 factory 649 subset consists of only 34 cards.

I can’t figure out any reason why these particular players were selected. I’d guess it was probably just a matter of selecting a Sweet Caporal 150 factory 30 sheet that was handy. The red bar overprint and the new text reading “FACTORY No 649 1st DIST N.Y.” was printed on the back of the SC 150/30 sheet. At the time, tobacco companies were required by law to indicate which factory any card or other piece of advertising media came from.

Each card in this subset is fairly easy to obtain, although if you are looking for a certain player it may take you a little while to track one down. Like Sovereign 150 backs, they can be quite tough to find in higher grades. The prevailing theory on why this is the case goes like this: Cards released in 1909 were most likely handled by kids much more than cards released in 1911, when production of the set was winding down. In 1911, some of the kids who played with the cards in 1909 may have gotten bored with them. When production stopped in 1911, a lot of the cards probably got put in a drawer and forgotten.

The Sweet Caporal 150 factory 649 subset itself does not offer any rarities, but it does have a strong correlation to some rare Old Mills that were printed soon after. 30 of these 34 poses were printed with Old Mill backs in 1910, and those 30 are some of the toughest Old Mills in the set to find. Any theories as to why would just be speculation, but it’s possible that this sheet was used for the SC 150/649 backs for some period of time while the Old Mill backs were being printed. If so, these 30 poses may have started the Old Mill print run late, resulting in lower Pop numbers for these 30 poses. It’s fun to speculate, but I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly why these 30 poses are more scarce with Old Mill backs than other 150-350 subjects.

There does not appear to be any similar correlation with El Principe de Gales or Sovereign 350 backs. The 4 players who were not printed with Old Mill backs are Powers, who is a 150-only subject, and Ewing, Jones, and Spencer, who are all members of the “Elite 11”, a group of subjects who were pulled very early in the 350 series. It’s interesting that all 30 of the remaining players were selected to be printed with Old Mill back, but only 22/34 were used for EPDG and only 10/34 for Sov350.

Thanks as always to t206resource.com for the use of their checklists.

Collecting T206: Choosing a Focus

Luke December 4, 2016 December 3, 2016

Figuring out exactly how you want to approach the set is easier said than done. It will most likely take some trial and error before you feel confident that you know what you want to collect. That being said, it definitely can’t hurt to go into it with an idea of how you want to get started. There are a ton of different ways to collect the T206 set. Let’s take a look some of the more common approaches:

Collect all 518 (or 520) fronts:
This is pretty self-explanatory. You pick a general condition preference, and work on getting one of each front. Some people stop at 518 cards, and others make it 520 which includes the St. Louis variations of Demmitt and O’Hara.

Collect all of the Hall of Famers:
Also quite simple. There are 76 cards in the T206 set that depict a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Most of us can’t afford a Plank or Wagner, so that drops the number to 74.

Collecting just one back:
Some people decide they just love the look of one particular back and try to get every card that was printed with it. I have a friend who has a complete Polar Bear set and another who is getting pretty close on an entire Tolstoi set.

Collecting one team or city:
This is a great way to enjoy the set. It makes a lot of sense if you are from or reside in one of the cities represented in the set. Some collectors take it a step further and try to collect their favorite team with a variety of backs.

Back collecting:
This can mean trying to find one copy of each back, or multiple copies of certain backs. The common denominator for back collectors is that they tend to prefer the uncommon backs, sometimes to the point that they have little interest in common backs.

Collecting a player back run:
The idea is to take one pose, figure out all the possible backs that exist for it and try to acquire them all. This can be a really fun way to collect and learn about the set. One collector has an epic back run of the Cobb red portrait. He has more than 20 different red Cobbs, all with different back advertisements.

Collecting a subset:
This is similar to collecting just one back, but deals with one specific series and/or factory number. For example, a collector I know has a complete Sweet Caporal 350-460 factory 25 subset.

Most of the time, a new collector will fall into one of these three categories:

Just wants a few stars and/or notable players
Wants to collect a team or city
Wants to collect the entire set

Starting with a smaller goal can be a great way to get your feet wet and see what appeals to you. However, if you plan to tackle The Monster in its entirety, know this: Attempting to complete the set is a monumental task. Most people who start never finish. Completing the set requires a lot of money, patience and determination. Perhaps more importantly, it requires that your focus remains constant. I know quite a few collectors who set out to complete the set and and their focus never wavered. For others (me included), the journey isn’t quite so smooth.

When I began collecting the set, I wanted to complete it in right around Good Condition. I got up to about 175 cards and then one day I realized that I was just plodding along, checking off cards on my checklist, but not really enjoying it. What happened was I had started to be attracted to the tougher backs, but I couldn’t afford to buy any if I wanted to complete the set in the next 10 years. My budget was pretty small and I was adding a common once a week or so. I felt like it was going to take me forever to complete the set, and I wasn’t enjoying the journey much. Once I realized that my focus had changed, I sold off most of the commons and started over with a new plan. Nowadays, I am mainly a back collector and I don’t have any plans to complete the set anytime soon.

A change in focus isn’t a bad thing. After all, the only reason to collect anything is if you enjoy it. If you ever find yourself losing interest in your collecting goals, take a little break. Be aware that your wants may change as you learn more about the set and handle more cards. It could be as simple as your condition preferences changing along the way. It’s also possible that your collecting journey will take you to unexpected places. When I first caught the T206 bug I thought the fronts of the cards were really cool and figured I’d try to get one of each. I never expected that I would be collecting them based on the tobacco ads on the back. I also never imagined I’d love it so much that I’d end up writing about the set and sharing the fun with other collectors. But, here we are.

Ever noticed that some T206 cards with 350 backs have a “washed out” look to them?

Luke February 9, 2017 November 27, 2016

Me too, so I figured I’d write a post about it. This is a phenomenon that most advanced collectors are aware of. However, I don’t think there hasn’t been much written about it.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll get right to it. Some cards from the 350 series have an unfocused, “washed out” look to them that is easy to notice once you know what you are looking for. Not all cards with 350 backs can be found with the washed out look. From what I have seen, only poses from Print Group 1 have exhibited this print anomaly. So, in theory, there should be 146 subjects that exist with a washed out image. The way I arrive at that number is taking the entire checklist of Print Group 1 (thanks to t206resource.com for the checklist) which is 159 subjects, and subtracting the 13 subjects that are 150 only poses.

“Washed out” images can be found on fronts with these backs:

Old Mill
Piedmont 350
Sovereign 350
Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25
Sweet Caporal 350 factory 30

It’s really unclear at this point how this may have happened. Not all Print Group 1 cards with the above backs have washed out images. I talked with a friend recently who has a theory that there were three distinct print runs in the 350 series and that small changes were made before the printing of each. I’m very intrigued by this idea and I plan to look into it further. If I’m able to find anything of substance, I will be sure to write about it. This theory would explain the washed out image phenomenon pretty well. It would explain why some Old Mills from Print Group 1 have great focus and vivid colors, while others are unfocused and have muted colors. It seems that at some point during the 350 series run on Print Group 1, that the printing presses got out of whack for a little while and created this washed out look. That could have been at the tail-end of the 350 print run of PG1, or at the beginning and the printing presses were fixed for subsequent print runs.

I find it hard to explain exactly what we are looking at. The Old Mill Overall at the top of this post is clearly missing some of the darker colors. The red, blue, brown and black are all darker and more crisp on the SC 150/25 copy. Meanwhile, the Hahn Old Mill below actually looks darker than it’s Sov150 counterpart. Both Old Mills clearly have the same washed out look however. If anyone who has a better understanding of the printing process can shed some light on what created this “washed out” look, I would very appreciative.

Many collectors actively avoid these cards, preferring 150 backs with crisp images. I may be the only one, but I really like the washed out look. If these cards ever gained popularity, I think we would find that they are somewhat tough to find in general and that the really extreme examples are quite scarce.

How to Use the PSA Pop Report

Luke November 23, 2016 November 19, 2016

I hope this post will be helpful to any and all collectors, but T206 collectors in particular definitely need to know this stuff. When you are dealing with some of the more scarce T206 backs, it can be very helpful to take a look at the Pop Reports.

The term “Pop Report” is short for “Population Report” and population just means all of the cards that PSA has graded. It’s a powerful tool which can help you understand the relative scarcity of a given card.

It is important to note that the PSA Pop Report only shows the cards that have been graded by PSA. It doesn’t show cards graded by SGC, BVG, or any other company and it doesn’t show ungraded cards. So, for one individual front/back combo, the Pop Report certainly does not tell you the whole story. But when you look at a lot of different cards and compare the data, you are going to have a very good idea about relative scarcity of your sample.

I think the best to way to show you how to use the report is with an example. I recently picked up this T206 PSA 3 Ossie Schreck with Cycle 350 back. Pretty sweet huh? Now, I want to know how many Schreck Cycle 350s have been graded and what is the highest graded copy.

Continue reading How to Use the PSA Pop Report

Understanding the T206 American Beauty backs: Overview (Part 1/4)

Luke February 9, 2017 November 16, 2016

Understanding the American Beauty backs can be a challenge, so I’m going to go into detail here and hopefully answer any questions that you may have. As always, please send me a message via the “contact” button if you have any questions or suggestions.

There are three distinct and different American Beauty backs:

-American Beauty 350 with frame (AB350w/f)
-American Beauty 350 no frame (AB350nf)
-American Beauty 460 (AB460)

The three backs represent distinct portions of the T206 print run, and are almost always mutually exclusive. This means that when a certain pose exists with one American Beauty back, it will not exist with any others (there are 19 exceptions to this rule within the AB350nf and AB460 checklists, which I will get to in Part Three).

Pricing:

In general, AB460 backs sell for the most, followed by AB350nf and then AB350w/f. I’ll explain why and talk about exceptions to the rule.

Scarcity:

This is how they rank on the T206resource.com back scarcity list:

Where each back lies in scarcity rankings is largely due to the size of each checklist. It makes sense that there are less AB350nf backs out there than AB350w/f, simply because the latter were printed with 5 times as many fronts. As you can see from the graphic below, AB460 is more scarce than AB350nf despite being printed on twice as many fronts (75 AB460 to 37 AB350nf). The reason for this is that there are some truly rare cards in the AB460 checklist. The same cannot be said for the AB350nf subset.

It’s important to note that this is a broad overview, and that individual cards within these series can range from very scarce to somewhat common. I will go into more detail in the rest of this series, but here is an example to show what I mean:

Gabby Street’s portrait can be found with a AB350w/f back. Gabby Street’s catching pose can be found with a AB350nf back. If you just looked at the overall scarcity rankings, you would assume that the catching pose would be the tougher card to find. In this case, that would be incorrect. PSA lists 8 Street catching with AB350nf backs and only 5 Street portraits with AB350w/f backs.

Stay tuned for Parts 2 through 4 of this series where I’ll build upon this framework by taking an in-depth look at each American Beauty back.

Thanks to Ted Z. for pointing out an error in the first draft of this article.

Thanks as always to the guys at T206resource.com for allowing me to use their checklists.

T206 Brown Hindu: The Case of the Missing Red Ink

Luke February 9, 2017 November 13, 2016

If you’ve looked at enough T206 scans, you’ve probably come across some Hindus that look a little weird. Many, like this Beaumont above, were printed with very faint red ink. Others appear to be missing red altogether. This phenomenon is most pronounced on cards with red backgrounds, though it does affect other cards as well. If you take a look at my example scans, you can see that most of these cards appear to have an orange background. Some have more red than others, but all of them are noticeably more orange than a typical example with a different back.

If you take a close look at other cards with Hindu backs, you can see that red is missing, even when red didn’t figure prominently in the card’s design. These two Bradley portraits have a subtle difference; the color of the lips.

I have never heard any theory about why so many Hindus are missing red ink. It would stand to reason that quality control was not a huge concern at American Lithographic Co. where the cards where produced. After all, the cards were to be given away for free as advertising. That said, the overall quality of production across the entire set is quite high in my opinion. Most cards are well-centered with nicely aligned fronts and backs. Colors and shading can vary a bit from one example of a card to another, but rarely to the level we are looking at here.

Here’s my theory: Hindu backs were produced early in the T206 production run. My guess is that at the beginning, quality control was a little bit lax. Most of the Hindus were probably printed, even though the red was not as dark as they wanted. Once the cards were released they became a cultural sensation. People loved them, and as a result the American Tobacco Company may have wanted to ensure that subsequent printings would be of higher quality. It’s also possible that the printers didn’t realize that the design called for more red, because they hadn’t seen enough copies of the cards to be able to tell what they were meant to look like.

Back Scarcity in the T206 150-350 series Part Two: Brown Hindu

Luke February 9, 2017 November 10, 2016 2 Comments

In Part One of this series, I took a look at the checklist of the 150-350 series. We’ve seen that not all poses were printed with the same backs. The Piedmont, Sovereign 150 and Sweet Caporal print runs used the majority of the 159 player checklist. The other backs that comprise the 150-350 series did not. In the next few posts of this series, I’m going to take a closer look at the individual backs, beginning with Brown Hindu.

Brown Hindu backs were printed in 1909 at the beginning of T206 production. 102 Major Leaguers were printed with Brown Hindu backs. This is a bit odd because the Sovereign 150 backs were printed right about the same time. It begs the question, “If ATC had access to all 150 subjects that were used to create the Sovereign 150 print run, why did they choose not to print 48 of them with Hindu backs?” It likely has something to do with the inclusion of 34 Southern Leaguers into the Brown Hindu print run. We’re not likely to know the exact reason, but it seems likely that they wanted to include the Southern Leaguers and just removed some Major Leaguers from the print run to make it possible. To make things more murky, one of the Hindu Cigarettes newspaper advertisements (the one at the top of this post) included pictures of 3 cards that were not actually printed with a Hindu back. Along the bottom of the ad, you can see Waddell throwing, Lobert and Dooin at about 4 o’clock.

You might expect that the biggest stars would be included and the more obscure players would be omitted. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Stars such as Ty Cobb and Hal Chase were omitted from the print run while fringe players such as Wilbur Good and Al Shaw were included.

This is the list of the 48 Brown Hindu “no prints” from the 150-350 series

Abbaticchio, Ed (Brown Sleeves)
Ball, Neal (New York)
Bender, Chief (Portrait)
Camnitz, Howie (Arms Folded)
Chase, Hal (Portrait – Pink)
Chase, Hal (White Cap)
Chesbro, Jack
Cicotte, Ed
Cobb, Ty (Portrait – Green)
Cobb, Ty (Bat On Shoulder)
Conroy, Wid (Fielding)
Covaleski, Harry
Crandall, Doc (Portrait No Cap)
Criger, Lou
Criss, Dode
Donlin, Mike (Seated)
Donohue, Jiggs
Dooin, Red
Doolin, Mickey
Durham, Bull
Hahn, Ed
Hemphill, Charlie
Jacklitsch, Fred
Jordan, Tim (Portrait)
Karger, Ed
Keeler, Willie (Portrait)
Keeler, Willie (With Bat)
Kleinow, Red (New York – With Bat)
Lobert, Hans
Lundgren, Carl (Chicago)
McGraw, John (Finger In Air)
Mullin, George (Throwing)
Murphy, Danny (Throwing)
Nicholls, Simon (Hands On Knees)
Niles, Harry
Oldring, Rube (Fielding)
Rucker, Nap (Portrait)
Schaefer, Germany (Detroit)
Seymour, Cy (Batting)
Shipke, Bill
Smith, Frank (F. Smith)
Stovall, George (Portrait)
Tannehill, Lee (L. Tannehill On Front)
Turner, Terry
Waddell, Rube (Throwing)
Weimer, Jake
Williams, Jimmy
Young, Cy (Bare Hand)

As you can see, level of stardom doesn’t seem to have been taken into consideration. Likewise, geographic location of the teams doesn’t seem to have been a factor. 14 of the 16 Major League teams were included in the omissions and the distribution appears normal. Overall, it doesn’t seem that the omissions fit any kind of pattern.

Scarcity and Value

Hindu backs consistently sell for the highest prices of any 150-350 series back. In a general sense, Hindu backs are more scarce than any of the other backs that comprise the 150-350 series. This is because Hindu was only printed in the 150 series, while Old Mill and El Principe de Gales were printed on the backs of cards in the 350 and 460 series, making those backs more plentiful overall. In most cases, Hindu is the second or third toughest back to find for a given player, with Old Mill being the toughest. For players that were printed with both Hindu and EPDG backs, scarcity will be about the same for both.

Thanks to Mark at rustywilly.com for allowing me to use the newspaper advertisements.

The Easiest T206 Back Run: Jiggs Donahue

Luke February 9, 2017 November 4, 2016

So, what’s the easiest back run to complete in the 150-350 series? Chicago White Sox first baseman Jiggs Donahue. Donahue (mis-spelled on his t206 as Donohue) is the only player from the 150-350 series that was not printed with a Hindu, El Principe de Gales or Old Mill back. All other subjects were printed with at least one of those backs, and often more than one.

Here is the complete checklist for Donahue:

Piedmont 150
Sovereign 150
Sweet Caporal 150 factory 25
Sweet Caporal 150 factory 30
Piedmont 350
Sovereign 350
Sweet Caporal 350 factory 25
Sweet Caporal 350 factory 30

Donahue had a fairly nondescript career, and it helps to understand why he was not included in the aforementioned print runs. He played a little outfield and catcher in his first 3 seasons, but by the age of 22, was solely a first baseman. In 1904, his first year with the White Sox, he topped 100 games played for the first time. His career batting average (.255) and WAR (13.5) are very solid, but he rarely ranked among the top 10 in any category. In 1905, he was 7th in the A.L. in WAR for position players. He hit .287 that year, which was the 7th best average in the A.L. In 1907 he led the A.L. in games played and at bats. He never approached that number of games again. In 1908 he played just 93 and followed it up with 86 in 1909, his final year.

When production began in 1909, there was no way to know that it would be Donahue’s last year in Major League Baseball. He was just 29. So, his initial inclusion in the set makes sense. He was a young regular on one of the premier teams in the league. It also makes sense that he was omitted from the Hindu print run. For reasons unknown, only 102 of the 150 series subjects were printed with a Hindu back. So, 48 players were left off the Hindu print run. After his part-time duty in 1908, he seems like a logical candidate to be omitted. In 1910, when it came time to choose which players would be used for the EPDG and Old Mill print runs, Donahue was out of baseball and he was not printed with either back.

The thing that really doesn’t make sense is, “Why was he printed with a Sovereign 350 back when he was omitted from all of the other non-Piedmont/Sweet Caporal runs?” Only 80 subjects from the 150-350 series were used for the Sovereign 350 series. That means they chose not to use about half of the players from Print Group One. Many players who were still in the big leagues were printed with a Sovereign 150 back, but not with a Sovereign 350 back. Some players such as Bill Bergen, Wid Conroy, and Doc Crandall were left off the Sovereign 350 print run and then had another pose released later on in T206 production. So clearly, some players were left off the Sovereign 350 print run who were still popular Major Leaguers. It’s a mystery why Donahue was one of the players chosen for inclusion in the Sovereign 350 print run. Vive Lindaman, whose career ended in 1909 as well was pulled from production in 1910 right after being included in the EPDG print run, and right in the middle of the Piedmont 350 run.

Every front/back combo on Donahue’s checklist is readily available, making it a good choice for an easy introduction into collecting a back run. The card itself is one of the most beautiful from the 150-350 series in my opinion. Heck, maybe that is the reason they decided to continue to include it in 1910 print runs? We’ll probably never know the reason, but it is fun to speculate.

Intro and what’s to come

Luke November 23, 2016 October 19, 2016 1 Comment

First of all, thank you for stopping by and taking a moment to look around. This first post is going to be a brief overview of who I am and what I hope to accomplish with this blog.

My name is Luke, and I love baseball. I’m an avid T206 collector and researcher. For the past few years, I have spent around a dozen hours a week buying, selling, and researching the set. Over time, my interest has grown, and I’ve set out to learn as much as I can.

I anticipate that the vast majority of my posts will cover one of two overarching themes. First, the set itself. This will include things like the printing process used to create the cards, back advertisements, players depicted on the cards, timeline of production, print groups, individual player scarcity, back scarcity, and other such topics. Second, the collecting of the set. These type of posts will cover things like how to get started, different ways of collecting the set, making hobby friends, reacting to market trends, trading, new acquisitions, etc. I may occasionally stray into other topics such as current events in the hobby or other deadball era baseball card sets, but I will only do this when I have a compelling reason.

I decided to start a blog for a couple reasons. First, I have learned a lot over the last 7 years that I have been collecting T206s. I wanted a place to document and organize all of my thoughts and the new things I learn along the way. Also, I really enjoy talking with and interacting with other collectors. I think a blog is a great way to share knowledge and start a conversation. Working on a personal collection of anything is inherently a solitary endeavor. I have found that sharing it with others is what really gives meaning to a collector’s journey. I plan to post twice week and be active on social media and email. I hope you’ll stop by and be a regular visitor.