This is a guest post written by my friend and T206 aficionado Jay Kaplan. Jay originally published it on the Tobacco Row Facebook group. I really enjoyed reading it and thought other people would as well. It’s still possible to build a unique and impressive collection without breaking the bank, and these are some great examples to prove it. Thanks Jay!
One of the reasons that the T206 set is the best set of all time is the nuance. From starting with a team set (sorry if you’re a Pirates or Phillies fan!), to doing a HOF run, to doing a back subset, or endeavoring to complete the monster, there is truly something for every collector. Episode 4 of The Monster Podcast tried to break the set down to provide the collector with a blueprint to complete the set without destroying the bank. This blog is going to highlight a few cards from my personal collection that I think are of extraordinary coolness value that also did not break the bank. Combined, these 4 cards cost me $340, far less than $100 each.
There was admittedly some skill in finding these cards, but 3/4 were purchased off ebay during the last 16 months. The key here, was burrowing through hundreds (maybe thousands) of ebay auctions and listings to find some things that I thought were cool. And then following through with a reasonable bid to make sure they came home to Virginia. This blog will briefly discuss each of the 4 cards, and why I think they are cool.
Card #1 – Chief Bender no trees with a Cycle 460 back – FR condition (formerly an SGC 20); Cost: $150
Chief Bender is certainly in the lower tier of HOFers, and the no trees card is probably the least aesthetically pleasing of his three cards. This is also probably the least cool of the four cards I’m writing about. However, Cycle is one of my favorite backs in terms of appearance, and the Cycle 460 is one of the backs that I think is underrated and underappreciated. I rank Cycle 460 as the 10th toughest back, while the traditional rankings that float around the Internet rank it as the 15th toughest back (excluding Ty Cobb and SL Old Mill Brown from both lists). Getting any HOFer with a back of this difficulty is a great collecting accomplishment, but getting it for just $150 was a real coup.
Card #2 – Bill Dahlen Brooklyn – SCRAP; Cost: $95
Bill Dahlen is on everyone’s short list of non-HOFers that probably should have made it. Some claim that when the committee considers him again in several years that he may get in, but either way, he was a great player and his two cards are two of the best-looking portraits in the set. While the scarcity list says that Dahlen Brooklyn is #87, any set builder knows that it’s a difficult and expensive card to locate. This card is the only scrap Dahlen Brooklyn card that I have ever seen. A scrap is a card that was printed, but never released into packs. They are usually mangled (as this one is), horribly miscut, show visible printing errors, or have some other major issue that prevented them from being included in a pack Sweet Caporal cigarettes in 1910. This card is ¼ of an inch oversize top to bottom and full size left to right (even if it doesn’t look like it). There is nothing to stop people from mangling oversize cards to make them appear to be scraps, but this card sold for far less than a beater or trimmed Dahlen would have sold for (even if maybe it shouldn’t have). You have to train your eye to differentiate a scrap from a trimmed card, but generally if the card is full size but clearly cut at a steep angle, it’s likely a scrap. It’s always good to get a second opinion as I did before I purchased this card.
Card #3 – Bill Donovan fielding – with a “F” back stamp attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald; Cost: $74
This really cool old-fashioned “F” back stamp is attributed to legendary author F. Scott Fitzgerald. As a kid, he was a known collector of stamps, and an alleged T206 collector that stamped his cards. I’m a big fan of The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald as an author and person. There has been good research on Net54 to try to conclude whether or not these stamps are actually attributed to Fitzgerald (I am a believer even if others aren’t). But regardless of whether or not this card was actually touched, stamped, or owned by Fitzgerald, it is an amazingly cool back stamp. There are a decent number of these “F” stamps floating around, but this is the darkest and crispest that I have ever seen. We can all agree that this stamp was added by a young collector many years ago, and I think that personal connection is very cool.
Card #4 – Bob Rhoades arm extended – with a big factory number on the back (right border); Cost: $20
TR’s own Luke Lyon wrote a great blog on these big factory numbers, which is actually where I first learned about them (http://www.thatt206life.com/…/t206-sweet-caporal-350-facto…/). I’m not going to duplicate his work, but briefly, these big factory numbers exist only on Sweet Caporal 350 backs. Supposedly, during the printing process, uncut pages of T206s were stamped on the side to differentiate the Sweet Cap 350 Factory 25 pages from the Sweet Cap 350 Factory 30 pages. Normally, when the cards were then cut they were cut in such a way that the large factory numbers did not appear on the cards themselves. After all, they weren’t supposed to! However, some were miscut and part of a number is clearly visible on this card along the right border about 2/3 of the way down. This card is doubly cool because large factory numbers are typically seen on the bottom of the card rather than along the left or right border.
Sometimes the cost and value of a card is not indicative of the coolness value that card possesses. All of these cards will forever remain a part of my personal collection just because I think they add some variety that even a Cobb cannot provide. Sometimes it’s just not about the dollars and cents. Happy collecting everyone and feel free to share your own cards that are low in cost, but high in coolness value in the comments!
-Written by Jay Kaplan