Wirt Gammon article from 1940
 

I was looking for info on the Baseball Writers Association of America Rooke of the Year awarded from 1940-46, and the article next to it really caught my eye.

Mr. T206 of Ballcard Collector fame!

Yes sir indeed! Gammon was an excellent writer too, but I'm not sure how many people know him as a Hobby Pioneer?

wirt gammon
 

When I got back into collecting in the mid 1970s, Wirt Gammon was writing a column for SCD. John Stommen, the publisher, said Gammon insisted on being paid for his work. It didn't amount to much money, but he was a writer and he wanted to be treated as one. He struck me as being an unpretentious guy, as were most of the pioneer collectors. Part of his column was entitled, "Can Anybody Help?" This was his was of giving free space to collectors who wrote to him with questions or particular needs. I believe Gammon was an early T206 Wagner owner.
lumberjack

I bought my first T205s from Wirt for 50 cents each plus postage!

Wirt was a great guy! I bought most of my T206s from him back about 1970-71, for 35 cents each. If I had money to buy 100, I'd send him $35 - he would mail me 100 different in one of those old metal Band-Aid cans. If I needed them all, I would keep them, if I already had some I would send the duplicates back, and he would send me another batch to look through.

Yes, Wirt had a T206 Wagner (Honus, as well as Heinie). He offered it to me for $500. But, I was in college, didn't have $500. Bill Haber eventually got it from him. Funny, all I ever got from Wirt were T206 cards, I never even asked him about anything else. He probably had T205s, too, I would think, but it took me about 30 more years to getting around to collecting those!

Yeah, Gammon was the sports editor of a newspaper in Tennessee (I forget which one) from 1933 on, and he sometimes wrote for national sports publications too. At the link below is an article about baseball cards that he wrote for the January 11, 1945 Sporting News, which I believe was the first article about baseball cards in a national publication.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=238775

Later in 1945 he began writing a semi-regular column about sports collecting (mostly things other than cards) for Sports Exchange Trading Post. After that publication went under in 1950, he wrote intermittently for Sport Fan and other hobby publications in the 1950s and 60s, and for Ballcard Collector and then SCD in the 70s. His SCD column continued into the early 1980s.

Wirt is my last name!! At first, I thought this article was about ME, until I remembered that I have NEVER owned a T206 Wagner. :(

~ Ken Wirt