Posted By:
DaveWTrea,
I'm still around, mostly lurking.
The original set has a history that you wouldn't believe if you read it on ebay.
Most of my wife's great uncles were all ball players. This was in Fredericksburg, VA. Their last names were all Gouldman. One of the uncles was a banker and either arranged for or self financed the building of a baseball field, Gouldman field. One of the uncles supposedly was a pitcher for Virginia Tech during his college years. I have more details (such as names) and hope someday to find out more about them and the league where they played.
To get to the cards: All of these guys smoked, and Piedmont was their brand. They collected the T206 cards into one collection. At some point, they all ended up together, and were stored in the attic of one. Yes, in a trunk. Sometime in the 70's my father-in-law visited his uncle and asked about the cards. He retreived them from the trunk in the attic, took them home, and put them into vinyl protective sheets and into a notebook.
After his death in the 90's, the notebook kicked around the house of my mother-in-law. In early 2004, she moved west to be near her daughter, and me, too. As we helped her unpack, she handed me the notebook and told me I should have it. It contained 500+ T206's, 45 T205's and 12 T210s. Of the T206's there were 419 different cards. None of the real rare cards, but who can complain.
I think the idea was that I would figure out how to sell these, but I started buying the missing cards, much to my wife's dismay. I have completed the near set, missing the rarest 6 cards. Three of these just sold on Huggins & Scott, but I didn't bid.
I'd love to hear from anyone who know of any history of baseball in the Fredericksburg area, and Gouldman field in particular.
Here's a few pics with samples of the lines on the backs:
