AFFORDABLE T206 sub-sets you can COMPLETE

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

To some collectors "a near complete T206 set" is not good enough....520 cards just don't quite do it for you. Then,
try putting together T-brand sub-sets that avoid the "Big Six"....and, you can achieve a sense of completion at an
affordable price.
Obviously, you avoid PIEDMONT and SWEET CAPORAL brands. So, presented here are 7 sub-sets, in order of their
availability and affordability that can be completed.


1st....POLAR BEAR....approx. 300 cards (incl. 2-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 1-Matty, 1-CYoung)....$15,000.... add Demmitt
and O'Hara (St. Louis vars.).... then $22,000

2nd....TOLSTOI....approx. 300 cards (incl. 2-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 1-Matty, 1-CYoung)....$16,000

3rd....SOVEREIGN....410 cards (incl. 5-Cobb's, 2-Johnson's, 4-Matty's, and 3-CYoung's)....$18,000

4th....OLD MILL....approx. 350 cards (incl. 3-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 2-Matty's, 2-CYoung's and 48 So. Lgrs)....$22,000

5th....El Principe de GALES....approx. 300 cards (incl. 2-Cobb's, 2-Johnson's, 2-Matty's, and 2-CYoung's)....$24,000

6th....AMERICAN BEAUTY....approx. 350 cards (incl. 2-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 1-Matty, and 1-CYoung)....$25,000

7th....Brown HINDU....190 cards (incl. 2-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 2-Matty's, and 1-CYoung, and 37 So. Lgrs)....I will defer
to Brian Weisner on the price of this set.

Set prices are approx. and are based on UNGRADED cards in Vg-Ex condition.


TED Z

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey Ted,

Great breakdowns. Especially when folks understand what you say about how Piedmont 150s came first, then Sovereign 150s....


But 190 different brown Hindu cards sounds expensive to me... especially when 7 major HOF cards and all those southern leaguers are in there.

I'd like someone to guestimate the cost of each of the 6 suggested subsets. I suspect the 6th set, the Hindu's will be the most expensive.


Frank.

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Posted By: Jim Dale

That is interesting information that I like to see; thanks. I started with the backs set and that darn BL 460 and recent hype on the Red Hindu makes it very hard. (not impossible but hard). The good part is its just 36 cards though.

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Posted By: barry arnold

I think that Mr. Wakefield is on target with his belief that the Hindus will be more expensive, even at the much lower number of 190.
I have just a few Hindu SL'ers and they sure cost the bucks.
I don't have any HOF Hindus as they were cost prohibitive.
I'm eager to hear from BW as you suggest, Ted.
Great stuff.

all the best,
barry

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Posted By: Jason L

who can consider those to be "affordable"
I am green with envy!

I am sticking with even more bargain basement stuff like team sets and a few more unique aesthetically-defined subsets for now. But I hope to one day graduate to the larger back-defined sets you have done so much admirable work on over the years, Ted.

good stuff

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Ted, shouldn't that be 4 Cobbs on the Sovereign set?

I am going for the 518 or maybe 520 set, the upper tier HOF'ers are pricey indeed, which is why I am knocking them off first. We'll see on Demmitt and O'Hara but they are a little down the road if I decide to go for them. No way around it, T206 is not cheap to work on!

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

With the exception of the SOVEREIGN set, the other 6 sets shown here are not completely defined
as to exactly how many cards were printed with their respective back.

The HINDU set is the 2nd most well defined......in that a good majority of the 156 cards (except for
Lundgren, Magie, Plank, and Wagner) in the 150 Series were printed with this back. Brian Weisner is
our expert in this department and he has confirmed 100+ T206's with this HINDU back (which inclu-
des 37 of the Southern Leaguers). Therefore, I hope he will chime in with more definite info.

Anyone, who chooses the challenge of completing a POLAR BEAR, or TOLSTOI, or an OLD MILL set is
breaking new ground and can provide the hobby with valuable information regarding which Subjects
were printed and which are the "No Prints".

RayB is pursuing an EPDG set and may chime in on how tough this set is.

Bill Brown (of Super-Set fame) has been diligently working on an American Beauty set and I hope Bill
will chime in with his info. and experience collecting this very tough back.


................1st..........................2nd.. ........................3rd....................... .....4th

................5th............................6th ..........................7th

One sub-set I haven't mentioned is a CYCLE set. Lee Behrens has been putting together a CYCLE 460
set and perhaps he has branched out to include the CYCLE 350 cards. Very tough, indeed.

I had a great experience completing a 410 card SOVEREIGN set. My current T206 project is an American
Beauty 460 series set. And, although I figure there are only 75-100 of these backs, I am having a very
tough time finding them. I'm approx. 1/2 of the way complete.

I wish anyone GOOD LUCK....who tries to COMPLETE any of these sets.


T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

You asked....

"Ted, shouldn't that be 4 Cobbs on the Sovereign set?"

Dave

A complete SOVEREIGN set includes the 6 Super-Prints with both SOVEREIGN 350 and 460 backs;
therefore, I have identified 5-Cobb's and 4-Matty's.

TED Z

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
I'll post on the Hindu's tomorrow when I have time...

Be well Brian


PS If all 190 "possible" Hindu's exist... I quit....

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Posted By: J. McMurry

I'm not an expert on these,but why havent you mentioned the Carolina Brights?
are they super rare?

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

"A complete SOVEREIGN set includes the 6 Super-Prints with both SOVEREIGN 350 and 460 backs;
therefore, I have identified 5-Cobb's and 4-Matty's.

TED Z"

A-ha!

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Posted By: JimB

"I'm not an expert on these,but why havent you mentioned the Carolina Brights?
are they super rare?"

They are pretty darn tough. It isn't that hard to find an example or two, but completing a sub-set would be extraordinarily tough - much harder than even the Hindu sub-set.
JimB

edited to add: Carolina Brights are just a notch down in difficulty from Drum and Uzit. They are easier than those two, but probably the next toughest brand.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

"Carolina Brights are just a notch down in difficulty from Drum and Uzit. They are easier than those two, but probably the next toughest brand."

Would you say tougher than Lenox? That brand is next on my back parade and I'm just trying to gauge the pain in advance.

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Posted By: JimB

I completely forgot about Lenox when I wrote that late last night. I just looked up the numbers from Doug Allen and Art Martineau's survey of nearly a half million T206s many years ago. They found Lenox to be about 3x as tough as Carolina Brights with Broadleaf coming in between the two.
JimB

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Which would be the least expensive of the backs to complete a set of?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

My 1st choice is still POLAR BEAR....only 300 cards with only 2-Cobb's, 1-Johnson, 1-Matty, and 1-CYoung)....approx. $15,000

The Polar Bear cards are quite available; but, you have to forget Demmitt & O'Hara.

Next, I would suggest SOVEREIGN....only 404 cards....if you leave out the 6 super-prints with the additional Sovereign 460 backs.
Sovereign cards are quite available; but, not as available as Polar Bear's.

TED Z

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I did not include this T-brand in the mix for several reasons......

1st.....These backs are extremely rare and very expensive ($500 per common T206)

2nd.....Out of a possible 214 cards, approx. 120 have been confirmed. Therefore, if you were able to acquire all these 120,
your $$$$$$ outlay would be approaching $100K......not what anyone would call "Affordable".

3rd.....Our Net54 expert on Carolina Brights is Brian Weisner; and, I know he can enlighten us on this T-brand better than
anyome else.

TED Z

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Posted By: Ted Sherman

How about the "sunset" subset, or horizontal subset? We need to keep this afforable!

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Posted By: Jim Dale

I thought the 36 Backs set was feasible, and among the most affordable. The "hype" on some of the issues right now puts it up there with some of these sets.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Here's an affordable subset and probably one no one ever put together,if they did,they stole my idea before I had it. Players who made their major league debut in 1909...

Fred Beck
Ray Demmit
Tom Downey
Ted Easterly
Roy Ellam
Clyde Engle
Russ Ford
Art Fletcher
Harry Gaspar
Dolly Gray
Bob Groom
George Hunter
Pryor McElveen
Chief Meyers
Dots Miller
Bill O'Hara
Rebel Oakes
Jack Quinn
Jim Scott
Dolly Stark
Zack Wheat
Lucky Wright


Just 1 hall of famer,a couple southern leaguers in there and since Demmitt played for NY(al) and O'Hara played for NY(nl) in 1909 you just need the cheaper versions. Total cost,maybe $900-1000 in vg/ex and you'll have yourself a collection of all the 1909 rookies in the t206 set,sort of like the Topps ML debut set from the early 90's

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Or you can go for the opposite. All the players who played their last major league game in 1909. 36 total players,2 hall of famers, a souther leaguer,and a tough variation as you'll need the Chicago version of Lundgren. Should cost just south of $1500 total depending on condition of course....if you go for both subsets I mentioned,you'll have to decide if you want a Lucky Wright for each one or just link the sets by using him since hes the only player who played in just 1909


Whitey Alperman
Jake Atz
Frank Bowerman
Fred Burchell
Billy Campbell
Jack Chesbro
George Davis
Bill Dinneen
Jiggs Donahue
Gus Dorner
Bull Durham
Hobe Ferris
Lou Fiene
Bill Gilbert
Del Howard
Frank Isbell
Arlie Latham
Glenn Liebhardt
Vive Lindeman
Carl Lundgren
Doc Marshall
Jack McAleese
Al Orth
Frank Owen
Jim Pastorius
Doc Powers
Bob Rhoads
Charlie Rhodes
Claude Ritchey
Claude Rossman
Al Shaw
Bill Shipke
Charlie Starr
Jake Weimer
Jimmy Williams
Lucky Wright

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Posted By: Jason L

I love your subset idea, John.
way to think outside the box!

So, some interesting alternative (and cheaper!) ways to collect T206:
Team sets
Outstanding Sunsets
Stadium/Building Backgrounds
1909 Rookies
1909 "Last At-Bats"
The Big Sweaters

Anyone else care to share some unique checklists?!

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Posted By: Jamie

Yea I have one going for 1 letter of the alphabet at a time. I finished the letter "I", saddly that subset only includes Frank Isbell.

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Posted By: Jason L

I'm done with Z !

what fun is it if you can't ever accomplish anything, right?

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ted,
Here you go....


Hindu Set (190 cards): I think the real number of different poses released with Brown Hindu backs is closer to 155-160, and may be a bit lower. Collecting the first 50 or say may not take that long, but it really slows down once you get over the 100 mark. And when you get past 125 it slows to a crawl... My last "new" Hindu pickup took 7 months...
The cost of getting to the 150 mark in VG would probably hit an avg of $300.00 a card or 45K, so you may want to shoot for FR/GD.

Anyone wanting to include Hindu's in there collection, may want to spilt up the Southern League set into teams and see if you can collect 1/3 with Hindu, 1/3 with Old Mill, and 1/3 with Piedmont...


Carolina Brights (214 cards): Give up!!!! These are my favorite... and I don't need the competition.... In all seriousness, this set is probably close to complete at 140 cards or so, unless we "find" a lot of new cards in the future. I won't even speculate on the cost, because I've only made it to 50 and that took a few decades....

I hope this helps a little. Be well Brian

PS I wish I had as much free time as T-REX... so I could help you more...

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Posted By: Rich Klein

You can go for a subset such as HOFers issued while they were in the minors.

Joe McGinnity and anyone else? (I want to say Joe Kelley but this is off the top of my head without any other reference material available). That should be a completable and affordable subset

Players featured in Glory of their times. I think a few such as Chief Meyers, Sam Crawford and others are featured. Again, completable (is that a word) and fun to do

Players you think are the ugliest in the set. Dick Egan and whom? We once raised $21 at Sabr to save a Dick Egan T206 card which we were going to cut in half as a good luck charm to the SABR Deadball committee. Someday, I'll explain the whole story.

Etc, etc.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: JimB

Brian,
Your accumulation of tough backs is amazing!
JimB

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Posted By: Scott Levy

My favorite choice would be a collection of back types. For this set you would forget about all the factory and series variations and just focus on the brand itself. I'm doing this from memory but think that it would include:

Piedmont
Sweet Cap
Polar Bear
Cycle
Old Mill
Tolstoi
EPDG
Sovereign
American Beauty
Hindu
Carolina Brights
Broadleaf
Lenox
Uzit
Drum

I would consider the blank back as a bonus addition.

Total cost for getting it completed = appx. $2500-3000 (with drum being the most costly component)

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

If I understand your theme correctly, then you have narrowed your selection to just one Subject.....the Red Cobb.
There are no other Subjects in the T206 set that can be found with all 15 brands. In fact, if I recall correctly, I do
not think a Red HINDU has yet been confirmed on a Red Cobb.

If not, the # of backs stays the same (15)....as we know, the Red Cobb comes with the Ty Cobb back.

Anyone ever see the Red Cobb with a Red HINDU back ?

TED Z

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Aren't they so rare they end up like the big four for most of the backs sets.

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Posted By: scott levy

In my proposed collection you don't need to get the backs of the same player you can mix and match players to get all the tobacco brands.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Thanks much for your expertise on the Hindu and Carolina Brights sub-sets. Summarizing......

Brown Hindu = 155-160 (1st Series and Southern League cards)

Carolina Brights = 140 (or so, cards)

Best regards ole Buddy,

TED Z

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Posted By: paulstratton

An all portraits sub-set would be 182 cards if you include Wagner and Plank. Without them it is pretty doable, even though you still need some SL'ers and 29 HOF'ers and the Magie/Magee.

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Posted By: Jason L

-True action shots, like Beck (or is it Becker, I forget) of Boston
-"Portrait-with-bat" shots (like Bradley or Lajoie or Keeler w/bat cards)
-by background color

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Posted By: Glenn

Titus always makes a nice subset.

You could collect players by birthplace, but if you're going to collect by country rather than state, it's probably better to do a subset from N172.

edited to add: thinking about this just made me curious about putting together a set of players from the largest cities in the world -- so I looked into it, and it turns out that only 4 players in major league history were born in any of the (currently) ten largest cities, and none of them played prior to 1996; wouldn't be much of a collection I guess, but I wonder how much more competitive the major leagues would be if there were serious baseball interest in, e.g., Mumbai, Moscow, or Istanbul

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Posted By: Darren

An Old Mill Southern league set. I kinda feel like the Old Mill version of Southern leaguers is THE version given the notation on the reverse.

An American League set, national league, southern league.

League leaders from 1909-1912, award winners, etc.

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Posted By: Steve

Interesting thread.

I like Scott's idea.


Steve

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Posted By: RayB

Great thread with some fun ideas.

Ted - I'm stalled on the EPDG's at the moment. Still have all I've accumulated (approx. 75 different)but diversions have taken me away from this focus for a while.

I have recently crashed my computer and lost all my good EPDG data. Please drop me an email if you have a moment to send me a new list of the confirmed available backs and possible backs to help me get back up to speed...if you would be so kind.

There seems to be a grouping of EPDG subjects that are more common than others, if my memory of the effort serves me. After that grouping adding more cards begins to provide somewhat more of a challenge than one would think especially if a budget is a concern. It is a popular back for sure and even the casual collector of T206 likes these backs.

Complete back sets are a wonder to behold even when you start off with just a handful. Polar Bears seem like a doable single back sub-set.

Ted - Thanks again for the thread; you never cease to keep us entertained crunching ideas about the "Monster".
RayB

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Ray,
Fire me an email and I'll send you all the EPDG data I have. 75 is a great start.... Sorry about the computer, but it happens to us all.

Be well Brian


PS Thanks God for an extra Hard drive....

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Posted By: ChiSoxFan

Would love to see some those "back" sets. I would be happy with a complete White Sox team set.

Have Jim Scott, only 27 more to go.

ChiSoxFan