Month: April 2019

George W. Harrison’s Sovereign 150 Barney Pelty

 

Editor’s note:  I am pleased to present a guest article written by fellow collector Thomas A. Slowey.  Thank you Tom!
The fair market value of a pre-war card to a vintage card collector is dependent on a myriad of factors, the majority of which are an interest in a particular set or player, the rarity of the issue and the condition of the particular card.  Intrinsic value may be embedded within fair market value based on the card being a survivor of handling, weather conditions, paper drives during war conditions and house cleanings.  Some intrinsic value exists in owning a card older than ourselves that has outlived world events such as economic depressions.  Unless passed down through a direct family member, rarely is the actual provenance of a card part of intrinsic value.  In almost all such situations this information has been lost by virtue of time.  A few such cards do exist thankfully to the early 20th century practice of adding a back stamp reflecting ownership.  While the stamping of old cards is uncommon, it is even more unique to find one with both an actual name and place of residence to pinpoint the true original owner.
 

The combination of the specific player below with its back stamp allows this card to be specifically traced to having been issued in the summer of 1909 to become possessed by George W. Harrison of Charlotte, Monroe County, New York shortly after he had attained the age of thirteen years.  Birth records show that George was born in Charlotte on April 26, 1896 as the only child of Maud N. Harrison, third spouse of George N. Harrison, who had four daughters.  As was common in that era, the family appears to have stayed in the area, as his parents, siblings and himself are all buried in nearby Rochester.

The 1909 to 1911 T206 “white border” series of cards were printed and distributed by the American Tobacco Company in three groups.  The 150 series, to which George’s card belongs, were the very first, printed and distributed starting in May and through the fall of 1909 when the 350 series commenced.  The American Tobacco Company distributed the 150 Series within the Piedmont, Sweet Caporal and Sovereign flagship cigarette brands, and its Hindu regional brand.  The horizontal Bernard Pelty was available only in the 150 Series.  Only six T206 cards contain horizontal images (Pelty and Pattee only in the 150 Series; Birmingham, Mullin, Murphy and Powell in the 150-350 Series).  The 150 Series (only) group contains 11 players (one of which is Honus Wagner’s portrait) on 6 different backs, for which Hindu then Sovereign 150 are considered much tougher than Piedmont or Sweet Caporal. 

Public records show that George’s father passed away at some unknown date in 1909 at age 61 or 62.  At least one of George’s grandfathers had predeceased his father, who had no brothers of record alive at that time either.  This makes it a reasonable assumption that George, unless attempting to smoke as a new teenager, was likely gifted this card by only his dad (or otherwise acquired it through inheritance had his father kept it in a drawer or book) shortly after May 1909.

In May 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Selective Service (Draft) Act.  George was likely drafted when he entered the United States Army at the age of twenty-one years old on December 16, 1917 as a Private, assigned to Battery F, 57th Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps.  He was promoted to Bugler on April 12, 1918.  His regiment left New York City aboard the USS Rijndam (Ryndam) on May 10, 1918 for France, after George had turned 22 years old.  Battery F served at the Battle of St. Mihiel at Sampigny, routing the German forces, continuing to the Meuse-Argonne sector, from September 25th to November 11th, driving the fiercely resisting enemy from Montzeville, Avocourt, Malancourt, Iovry, Mountfaucon and Bois de Romagne. 

On January 2, 1919, Battery F (with George having survived these battles) departed Brest, France on the USS Huntington among 1,700 passengers, returning to New York on January 14, 1919.  George was discharged on January 25, 1919, likely from Camp Merritt, New Jersey.  A photograph of Battery F, 57th Artillery, C.A.C. in France is shown above, for which he could be one of these soldiers. 

A World War I service book about Rochester men confirmed George’s death at the age of 30 on October 14, 1926, while living at 13 Vienna Street in Rochester, New York.  He was attached to the Aviation Corps of the U.S. Army.  George’s grave website information does not state that he ever married or had any children.  What is conclusive is that George W. Harrison was the original owner of this specific Series of 150 Sovereign card of Barney Pelty in the summer of 1909 at age thirteen when he lived in Charlotte, Monroe County, New York

Article provided by Thomas A. Slowey, who previously wrote “1893 ‘Just So’ Tobacco Cards Linked to Frishmuth Bros. & Co.,” Old Cardboard Magazine, Issue #27 (Spring 2012).

Intro to T206 Print Marks – Starring Hall of Famer Ed Walsh

This will be the first in a series of articles where I delve into the research of Pat Romolo.  Pat has been studying T206 plate scratches and print flaws for years.  He was one of the first (if not the very first) collectors to recognize the importance of such identifying marks.  I personally find his work incredibly clever and illuminating.  In this and the articles that follow, I’ll attempt to explain what makes these tiny print flaws so significant to our understanding of the T206 set.

If you take a very close look at one of your T206s, you may notice some things you hadn’t previously.  Every T206 has it’s own unique characteristics.  Some of the more common traits we look for are centering, registration, and boldness of color.  All of these are examples of “factory attributes”.  In other words, these elements of a card’s appearance are due to the way the card was printed at the factory.  Other aspects of a card’s eye appeal such as corner and surface wear, paper loss, writing, and creasing are all examples of “post-factory attributes”.  Print marks are factory attributes that go a long way towards helping us understand the printing process.

Many of the little marks and flaws on a T206 are unique to that particular example, but not all.  Some were printed on multiple cards, leaving a fingerprint (if you will) that can help us better understand the printing process.  Perhaps more importantly, these print marks and print flaws help us define a timeline for when each back was printed.

Today we’re going to take a closer look at this little red dot on Ed Walsh’s uniform.  The first step is to spot the print flaw.  The second is to look at a library of scans of the same pose to determine if this particular print flaw exists on just one card, or many.  In the case of Walsh’s red spot on his uniform, there are indeed multiple cards that exhibit the mark.

The table below shows the results of a survey Pat conducted.    The number on the right is the total amount of cards Pat examined, and the number on the left is how many of those cards had the red spot on the uniform.  A couple of things stand out immediately.  First, the red spot is very rare.  Pat surveyed over 400 copies of Walsh’s T206 and only found 8 examples that featured the red dot.

Upon closer examination, something else sticks out.  All 8 of the cards with the red spot appear on cards with 350 backs (with the exception of the Old Mill, but we’ll get to that in a moment).  None of the backs that were printed at the beginning of the 150-350 Series have been found with this particular print flaw.  No Hindu, Sovereign 150, Piedmont 150 or Sweet Caporal 150 backs.

It’s not a surprise to see an Old Mill back sprinkled in with the Piedmont 350 and Sweet Caporal 350 backs.  It has long seemed likely that Old Mill backs, along with Sweet Caporal 350 Factory 25 were the last two backs printed in the 150-350 Series.  What is interesting is the lack of a single example with either an El Principe de Gales or Sovereign 350 back.

We already knew that Sovereign 350 was printed at least slightly before Old Mill because Kid Elberfeld’s Sovereign 350 Portrait still has him with New York, whereas his Old Mill pictures him with Washington.  Nonetheless, it’s a nice bit of corroborating evidence.  In that same vein, the fact that Pat couldn’t find an El Principe de Gales back with the red dot supports the growing consensus among collectors that EPDG was either the last back printed in the 150 portion of the 150-350 Series, or the first back printed in the 350 portion.

If you own a copy of Ed Walsh’s T206, I hope you’ll go find it and see if you happen to have a copy with the red spot.  As we can see from the table, it’s a long shot (something like 2% chance), but if you do have one, please contact me and tell me about it!