“Gettysburg Eddie” Plank and His T206 Rarity – A 110 Year-Old Puzzle Solved?

Editor’s note:  I am pleased to present another guest article from hobby friend, and long-time collector Tom Slowey.  Enjoy!

by Tom Slowey

Eddie Plank, star pitcher for the Philadelphia A’s, has a card in the T206 White Border series, yet approximately only 100 of them exist.  For 110 years, the hobby has put forth different theories such as a player who did not want to encourage tobacco use among children, was under contract elsewhere or wanted more compensation for the use of his image, or even a broken printing plate.

The T206 set of 524 cards features 389 different players.  Are there just two of these players (Plank and Wagner) that objected to the use of their image in a tobacco product or wanted to be paid more money?  Other Philadelphia A’s players are common to both tobacco and caramel issues (such as Chief Bender and Harry Davis in the 1st (150-350) series of T206 and other players like Eddie Collins and Frank Baker in subsequent series), so could it really have been a sponsorship dispute?   The printing plate theory has elsewhere been dismissed based on Plank having different backs (150 and 350 series). A summer vacation trip to Gettysburg made me wonder about a new possible explanation, if you can first come to truly understand Eddie Plank’s life in that town.

Gettysburg Eddie’s is located at 217 Steinwehr Ave, Gettysburg, PA 17325

The July 1863 campaign in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is known as the “high water mark” of the Confederacy.  General Robert E. Lee had sought a victory on northern soil. In the Battle of Gettysburg, his infantry assault, now known as Pickett’s Charge, was met with defeat by the Army of the Potomac.  In its three day wake were 51,118 casualties, including 3,903 Confederates dead lying next to 3,155 Union dead. The Gettysburg townsfolk were left to bury them in place on farms, in peach orchards, and in the woods.  The Union soldier remains were re-interred at Soldier’s National Cemetery. The Confederate soldiers’ remains were left in place until relocation by their families to southern cemeteries through 1873.

Imagine Eddie Plank as a boy born in Gettysburg in 1875, hearing those Civil War stories from his father.  A boy who played with rifle “minnie balls” he found in the fields. A boy who could pitch so well that he was recruited to play for Gettysburg College in 1900 and 1901, even though he was not enrolled as a student there.  A boy who left Gettysburg to travel to major league cities and play on three World Series winning teams. Yet perhaps also a boy who’s mind and heart never really left the farmlands and town of Gettysburg.

Eddie Plank returned to Gettysburg in his playing days to give unofficial battlefield tours to teammates and visiting players.  He retired there with his wife and son on Carlisle Street and operated a Buick dealership. Plank died of a stroke at age 50 and was buried in Gettysburg’s Evergreen Cemetery, as was his father, grandfather and great grandfather (and later his son).

Eddie Plank with Connie Mack and other guests outside Gettysburg’s Devil’s Den.

Now imagine Plank as a young player seeing his image on a 1902 cabinet of the Sporting Life Newspaper Company (Philadelphia, PA), a 1903 caramel card of the Breisch Williams Company (Oxford, PA), a 1906 playing card of Fan Craze Company (Cincinnati, OH), a 1907 Ramly Turkish Cigarette card of the Mentor Company (Boston, MA), a 1908 candy card of the American Caramel Company (Philadelphia, PA), a 1909 candy card of the Philadelphia Caramel Company (Camden, NJ) and a 1909 postcard of Novelty Cutlery (Canton, OH).

Imagine Plank’s possible reaction to seeing his image on a 1909 white border card of a card with a Sweet Caporal back in an American Tobacco Company package – “A business from the SOUTH is using my picture?  The SOUTH who’s Confederate soldiers demanded their wounds be nursed on my uncle’s farm just before I was born? The SOUTH who left their dead Confederate soldiers laying in the summer sun and were buried in our fields, after they came here to plunder my town and try to beat the Union over on Cemetery Ridge?”

Sports Collectors Store Auction (1995 advertisement)

Eddie Plank’s real objection may have been to a SOUTHERN tobacco company using his image for their own purpose.  The American Tobacco Company would come to issue its remaining T206 white borders, as well as its T205 gold borders, T207 brown borders, T201 Mecca double folds, T202 triple folds, T3 cabinets and T332 stamps, all without his image being included.

Outside the tobacco trust cards, Plank’s images is used on plenty of cards from Northern companies, including 1910 M116 pastel cards of Sporting Life Newspaper Company (Philadelphia, PA), 1911 bread cards of the Williams Baking Company (Newark, NY), 1911 cabinets of the Pinkerton Tobacco Company (Owenboro, KY), 1911 tobacco cards of the Thomas Cullivan Company (Syracuse, NY), 1914 Texas Tommy cards by the Cardinet Candy Company (Oakland, CA) and 1914 and 1915 caramel popcorn cards by Cracker Jack (Chicago, IL).  Plank may have approved of only a card or two from South, such the 1911-14 tobacco cards of the Peoples Tobacco Company (New Orleans, LA) (yet that city had fallen to the Union in 1862).

So a boy may leave his hometown yet his hometown may not leave his heart, just like “Gettysburg Eddie” Plank.  Perhaps the truth is that Plank demanded the American Tobacco Company remove his card from any Southern tobacco card production, never to use his image again.

“Gettysburg Eddie”, courtesy of Sunbury Press Books.

Written by Tom Slowey

The author of this article formerly wrote “1893 ‘Just So’ Tobacco Cards Linked to Frishmuth Bros. & Co.”, Old Cardboard Magazine, Issue #27 (Spring 2012) and “George W. Harrison’s Sovereign 150 Barney Pelty”, That T206 Life (April 2019).  All rights to the article reserved by the author.