T206 backs in 1978-80

[trdcrdkid]

In the July 1978 issue of The Trader Speaks, Bill Heitman wrote a column about T206. He opened it by mentioning the huge number of front-back combinations, and how he would get snickers at shows for looking at the backs of the cards and checking them against his master list, because few people paid attention to that then. At the end of the article he lists the 16 T206 brands in order of his estimate of their difficulty, from Ty Cobb down to Piedmont and Sweet Caporal. That's the first two pages below.

In the November 1979 Trader Speaks, Heitman wrote a followup column in which he said there had been an explosion of interest in T206 since his first column, especially in the backs. He gives his estimate of the premium each brand commanded over Piedmont/Sweet Caporal. That's the third page below.

Around the same time, Heitman was finishing up his booklet on T206, "The Monster", which was the most exhaustive study of the set up to that time. It was published in early 1980. The last seven pages below are the ones in that booklet devoted to the backs, to give an idea of the state of hobby knowledge at that time. Heitman was way ahead of his time in paying attention to factory numbers and the different series of fronts that went with each back. He didn't know about brown Lenox or brown Old Mill (I don't think anybody did then), but he knew about red Hindu, and that it had only been found with 460-series cards.