Burdick's T206 checklist - 521 in 1936?

[parkerj33]

This has probably been answered before, but in Leon's thread posting burdick's letters to John Wagner, Burdick references the "521" set of cards, referring to the t206 set.

This was in 1936, and he knew about wagner and plank, so what cards from our known 524 today were unknown in 1936?

522: ??
523: ??
524: joe doyle ny nat'l

[egbeachley]

Probably classifying Demmitt and O'Hara St Louis as different.

[mrvster]

confused also

[boneheadandrube]

I don't think Magie was known until the 70's. Maybe known but the difference not identified...

[mybuddyinc]

My Guess ....

Magie was known, Doyle was not, and Demmitt/O'Hara were considered team variations:

524 - Doyle, NY Nat'l - Demmitt (StL) - O'Hara (StL) = 521


.... I like that.

[rats60]

It's more likely that he didn't consider Wagner and Plank as part of the set than Demmitt and O'Hara. It is questionable that they were actually in cigarette packs as neither Wagner nor Plank authorized their images on cigarette cards.

[parkerj33]

the letters make it very clear that he considered wagner AND plank part of the 521, as he stated to john wagner, that now that i am sending you the plank your 521 set is complete....

Leon, what does the first ACC checklist show? does it show magie or demmitt/ohara stl?

[1880nonsports]

wagner/plank already included. Following the trail by looking through successive ACC catalogs might give a clue as to WHEN an accepted higher number was put to print - but as the cards are not listed individually no clues as to the actual cards not included in the count can be gleaned. I do have a run of ACC's albeit without any supplements but they are inaccessible at the moment.
Perhaps the WTI which would address the individual cards and also followed a pattern of being issued in skip numbered years would bear fruit. T206's are too new to light a fire under my ass to do the labor......Maybe some of the letters to follow will reveal such details and I imagine it was addressed in some of the newsletters published contemporaneous to such a discovery/addition. I haven't looked in Lew's "T" book in 20 years - maybe something in there or trader speaks? Maybe the Bulletin?
With all the heavy hitters here what's into dese damn cards - hard to believe there's no definitive answer yet.

[Leon]

I think I have most of the "subsequent to the 1939 Catalog" supplements, but previous to the 1946 ACC version of the tome. I will look in the next few days to see if this info is addressed.....Interesting stuff for sure.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Leon

I think I have most of the "subsequent to the 1939 Catalog" supplements, but previous to the 1946 ACC version of the tome. I will look in the next few days to see if this info is addressed.....Interesting stuff for sure.

The 1953 ACC shows 522. The Appendix, which the listing refers to, mentions Plank and Wagner. Maybe they added Magie to get to 522 and then that just leaves a single card to get to the old 523.

It was still 522 in the 1960 edition BTW but Demmitt and O'Hara were now mentioned in the main listing; they were not specifically mentioned in 1953 but would have been included in the earlier counts unless only one was known for a while.

Using the old numbering system (which is not in the ACC and was ordered by team as it turns out-see next paragraph), the following cards are listed as having premium prices over the common 10 cents in 1960's Appendix (25 cents for SL'ers and $1.00 for Demmitt & O'Hara all shown in main listing): 25 cents - 4, 208, 242; 50 cents - 168, 172, 347a; $1 for 104, 148, 383. $10 for Plank no. 143 and $50 for Wagner no. 368. The pricing and numbering for these cards mentioned in the appendix were unchanged from 1953. I'm pretty sure 347a is Magie.

Looking then to Lipset's cross reference of the old T206 checklists, Wagner being no 368 refers to Egan's T206 checklist from the American Book of Checklists. However, I don't see an obvious blank in the Egan column and I don't have time to look further right now. Maybe someone else can cipher it from all this.

[trdcrdkid]

Interestingly, the 1960 ACC lists T206 as having 522 cards, and it also explictly lists O'Hara and Demmitt as being worth $1 each. In an appendix it says "Value 25c for cards No. 4, 208, 242. 50c for cards No. 168, 172, 347a. $1.00 for cards No. 104, 148, 383. $10.00 for Plank No. 143. $50.00 for Wagner No. 368."

At first I wasn't sure what checklist Burdick was using. It's not Frank Nagy's T206 checklist, which had appeared by at least 1971 and which I posted in this thread:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=203207

Nagy listed 524 cards. He had Wagner as #367, one off from Burdick, but Plank as #293, nowhere near Burdick's number.

Then I looked in Lew Lipset's Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, which cross references each T206 card with its number in three previous checklists. Apparently Burdick was using the list in the American Book of Checklists, which was popularized by Rich Egan and known as "Egan's list". It lists cards in team order, starting with all the Boston AL players in alphabetical order, then the other AL teams, then the NL teams, then each minor league. Nagy's list was the basis for the checklists in the early Sport Americana (Beckett) Price Guides, which listed all the major leaguers in one alphabetical list, then all the non-Southern minor leaguers in one alphabetical list, then the 48 Southern Leaguers in an alphabetical list.

Lipset just listed all the player in a single alphabetical list, as nearly all checklists today do, but he only listed 523 cards. The one card from the standard 524 that's missing in his list is Joe Doyle (N.Y. Nat'l). Lipset discusses the other standard T206 rarities in the accompanying article, but not that one. He discusses the "Magie" variation, but says that it was not well known as late as the early 1970s, when a collector found a cache of T206s while on vacation that included seven Magie cards, and sold them through a hobby publication at only a modest premium. Magie is included in Nagy's list, but maybe that and the Joe Doyle variation are the two missing from Burdick's 522 in 1960? I'm not sure what the other card would have been that was missing from Burdick's earlier total of 521.

Edited to add: I see that Dave Hornish put much of this same info in his post, which he posted while I was writing this one, except for Joe Doyle (N.Y. Nat'l) being missing from Lipset's list. I see now that the same card is missing from Egan's checklist, but then how did he get to 524? Hmmm. I don't have time to figure it out right now.

[Sean]

When Nagy listed 524 cards he counted Sweeney and Sweeney "no B" as separate cards. I don't know if Egan did the same.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Sean

When Nagy listed 524 cards he counted Sweeney and Sweeney "no B" as separate cards. I don't know if Egan did the same.

Ah, I see. I can't seem to find a copy of Egan's checklist right now, but I see that Erbe and Mitchell's American Premium Guide to Baseball Cards and Beckett and Eckes' Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide #4 (both published in 1982) both include Sweeney "no B" as a separate card but don't include Joe Doyle (N.Y. Nat'l). So they both list 524 cards in T206, but with that one difference from present-day checklists. I'm guessing that Burdick didn't know about either the Sweeney or Doyle variations, or if he did, he didn't consider them separate cards. The same goes for Magee/Magie, which were both #347 in Egan's checklist, according to Lipset. That gets us to the 522 that Burdick listed in the 1960 ACC, but it doesn't answer the question of which other card Burdick didn't know about in the 1930s and early 40s, when he was referring to it as the set of 521.

[Leon]

The 1939 US Card Collectors Catalog shows "521" for Baseball Series, white borders. It wasn't Until 1946 that it shows Baseball Series white border "522". A cursory look (I will look better later) through Supplements from 1940,1941,1942,1943 and 1944 don't show the addition. I am not sure a 1945 was made but I don't have it if it was. I will look through more notes.....(it does show Hustler as a back....which is kind of neat)

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Leon

The 1939 US Card Collectors Catalog shows "521" for Baseball Series, white borders....(it does show Hustler as a back....which is kind of neat)

And it doesn't show Uzit.

It also doesn't mention the Cobb back. Was that back a later discovery?

[toppcat]

Card Collectors Bulletin of April 1, 1953 has a lead article entitled "Is T206 Complete at 523 Including Magie?" It states "The checklist of T206 was originally compiled by Mr. Howard M. Myers in May of 1938. That was more than fourteen years ago and in that long length of time there have been no additions made to the original checklist."

So this gets even more mysterious if Myers had 523 in his checklist but Burdick only had 521, then 522 in the ACC, why was there a discrepancy?

I thought I had a copy of Egan's list but can't locate it right now.

[Leon]

After some more research I am not so sure "521" ever had to do with the number in the T206 set. I think it is possible it was a coincidence there were close to that many in the set. Here is a March 1938 Card Collectors Bulletin, and one of it's pages. with reference to "521" and there being around 510 designs.
Also, this 1942 Edition of the Card Collectors Bulletin Checklists lists "521" and then has 522 cards listed, for the White Borders (*and has T206 handwritten in, which is the earliest reference to T206 I can remember, assuming it's from 1942-1943..).

.

Originally Posted by toppcat

Card Collectors Bulletin of April 1, 1953 has a lead article entitled "Is T206 Complete at 523 Including Magie?" It states "The checklist of T206 was originally compiled by Mr. Howard M. Myers in May of 1938. That was more than fourteen years ago and in that long length of time there have been no additions made to the original checklist."

So this gets even more mysterious if Myers had 523 in his checklist but Burdick only had 521, then 522 in the ACC, why was there a discrepancy?

I thought I had a copy of Egan's list but can't locate it right now.

[toppcat]

Interesting Leon. So it's possibly a typo!

Agree 521/521 is a coincidence (I think).

Is there any chance Howard M. Myers was from the same family that owned part of Liggett & Myers? They ended up with American Beauty and Piedmont brands after the ATC breakup and it's an interesting possibility.

[Leon]

Hey Dave
I am still not sure what all of this means. I am pretty sure there were mistakes made and corrected on the fly in this era. I was glancing above and the 1939 page says 521 and (521 known)......With respect to the other numbers alluded to I am sure I can find similar, but different, occurrences from Burdick elsewhere too. Maybe all of this leads to the 1946 version of the ACC being the final iteration of most of the newer, ACC numbering system.

Originally Posted by toppcat

Interesting Leon. So it's possibly a typo!

Agree 521/521 is a coincidence (I think).

Is there any chance Howard M. Myers was from the same family that owned part of Liggett & Myers? They ended up with American Beauty and Piedmont brands after the ATC breakup and it's an interesting possibility.

[arc2q]

What is this about a Hustler back? I have not heard talk before of a mystery back to the T206 (née, the "521" set) before. Well other than Ty Cobb back. I'm sure this Hustler back has been discussed before.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Leon

Hey Dave
I am still not sure what all of this means. I am pretty sure there were mistakes made and corrected on the fly in this era. I was glancing above and the 1939 page says 521 and (521 known)......With respect to the other numbers alluded to I am sure I can find similar, but different, occurrences from Burdick elsewhere too. Maybe all of this leads to the 1946 version of the ACC being the final iteration of most of the newer, ACC numbering system.

Oh I know what it means.... we are all freaking obsessive nuts!

Mistakes made and corrected on the fly also describe our internet age-nothing new under the sun really. I think the 1953 edition is the one that veered toward the designations we are familiar with but some of those changed as well in the 1960 edition IIRC.

I see Mr Myers had a new address in the issue you posted. I can't say I've heard the name before in connection with the hobby but considering he created the T206 checklist you would think he'd be more well known.

[The Nasty Nati]

Originally Posted by arc2q

What is this about a Hustler back? I have not heard talk before of a mystery back to the T206 (née, the "521" set) before. Well other than Ty Cobb back. I'm sure this Hustler back has been discussed before.

+1 I'm also curious abut this mysterious Hustler back

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by The Nasty Nati

+1 I'm also curious abut this mysterious Hustler back

I asked the same question in this thread back in March:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=203207

And was pointed to this 2010 post by Leon which discusses the myth of the T206 Hustler back:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=123604

[Leon]

Back in the first of the catalogs Burdick thought Hustler was a T206 brand. As we eventually learned, it isn't. I think it's just that simple.

Originally Posted by arc2q

What is this about a Hustler back? I have not heard talk before of a mystery back to the T206 (née, the "521" set) before. Well other than Ty Cobb back. I'm sure this Hustler back has been discussed before.

[parkerj33]

By the way, I just found some notes from George Vrecheck on OBC.com, and 521 was actually the original number for t206. so its only a coincidence that set # 521 has 524 recognized subjects today.....

fyi, t200-t211 were originally set # 515-526. Burdick Listed all known post 1900 tobacco sets grouped by subject matter (actors , baseball players) and started at #500. 501 was actors, and 591 world war scenes.

this all changed in the 1946 ACC.