[marcdelpercio]

The T207's are one of the least understood and most challenging of all major tobacco issues. It tends to inspire a "love it or hate it" response out of most collectors. I'm guessing that by your post, you fall more towards the former (as do I). There are a few hardcore T207 fans on the board so I'm sure they will weigh in as well.

To try to answer your questions:

Within the T207 set, there are 150 cards that appear with only Recruit, Napoleon, or Anonymous Factory 3 backs. There are many levels of scarcity within this group and some of these cards are quite difficult (although none are in probably the top 20 toughest overall in the set).

There are another 50 cards that appear with only Broadleaf, Cycle, Red Cross, and Anonymous (Factory 3 or 25) backs. These are generally referred to as the "Broadleaf/Cycle class" cards. ALL of these cards are very difficult although a few such as O. Miller, Herzog and Gregg appear slightly more often, which is still rarely. The Broadleaf/Cycle group contains all of the very toughest cards in the set such as Donlin, Donnelly, Downey, Pelty, and Mogridge (as well as Lewis, Saier and W. Miller that were mentioned) and many of these almost never appear for sale. Ironically, the Lowdermilk, population-wise, is one of the (relatively) most common of this group although remains one of the most expensive cards in the set.

There is only one horizontal card in the set, Jack Barry, and this card generally commands a very slight premium although it is quite common.

There is an excellent previous thread that discusses possible distribution of the set, so definitely search that one out if you haven't already. Also, Tim Newcomb wrote and published an outstanding article on the set that originally appeared in the February 2004 #37 and June 2004 #38 issues of VCBC magazine.

Overall, completion of this set would be an impressive feat and a challenge that would likely take years as many of these cards very rarely appear for sale individually. There are a good 75-80 difficult cards in the set. That said, the set is surely one of my favorites and is truly like no other, for better or worse.