Hobby history: The discovery and evolution of T213s, 1942-1986

[Leon]

Great read, David. So in conclusion it seems T213 isn't a T206 .

[ullmandds]

neat stuff...but it looks like burdick had Hustler backs listed as t206 to the end as well...and this proved to be untrue?

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

neat stuff...but it looks like burdick had Hustler backs listed as t206 to the end as well...and this proved to be untrue?

He finally left out Hustler in the 1960 ACC. But then Frank Nagy listed Hustler in his widely reprinted T206 checklist in 1962, so that myth took a while to die off for good.

[Sean]

David, thank you for the history lesson.

[brianp-beme]

Very interesting. I don't collect the Coupon issues, but I find it surprising that the T213-3 issue was so overlooked and relatively 'undiscovered' until the mid-80's Lew Lipset write-up.

In my collecting experience I have for a long time believed that the T213-1 cards were the toughest to come by. Was there a large discovery of T213-3 cards in the 70's or 80's that made this issue more readily available?

Once again thanks David. If not already, all your posts like these should be given a dedicated spot in a special "History of the Hobby" section in the Archive Center here on Net54.

Brian

[buymycards]

Hi David, as a collector of Louisiana issues, I find this topic very interesting. Thank you very much for this information.

On a side note, I see that Burdick does not consider the T215's to be a Louisiana issue, and I agree with that assessment. They were not printed in Louisiana. They may have been distributed in Louisiana, but many other brands were also distributed there.

I have always wondered why Lew Lipsett considered them as a Louisiana issue, but I do not feel that they belong in that category.

Rick

[ValKehl]

But Rick, isn't it pretty much accepted belief these days that the T215 Red Cross cards were ONLY distributed in the Louisiana area? If so, I don't see that it matters as to where these cards were produced.

[DixieBaseball]

Originally Posted by Leon

Great read, David. So in conclusion it seems T213 isn't a T206 .

Leon - You are correct! Well, sorta... T213-2 and T213-3 are not T206's.... but T213-1 probably are and belong to T206 era of numerious brands which include different shape cards like AB, as well as different stock cards like Coupon Type 1's. Burdick had it right originally, but found it easier to just lump the 1's with the other two Coupon brands for Cataloging purposes.... Obviously those two are later productions of the t206 era coupon card. 1909-11 had many brands. Coupon was one of them, hence a T206.

[trdcrdkid]

I have a couple of updates to this post. First of all, I did hear back from Lew Lipset, who said that as far as he knows, Clayton Schweitzer, the source of his checklist and other info on T213-3s, did not publish anything on T213s before Lew's Encyclopedia. He also said that he has been in touch within the past year with Schweitzer, who is still alive and well and still has all his T213s.

In the original post, I wrote: "I'm not aware of any more checklists or articles about T213s between 1948 and 1977, though it's possible that I'm missing something." It turns out that I was missing something. E. C. Wharton-Tigar, the prominent British card collector behind the World Tobacco Issues Index (1956), put out a series of "Cartophilic Typed Listings" with updated checklists and other information on various tobacco card sets from the WTI. Wharton-Tigar's Cartophilic Typed Listing #14, issued in 1966, included updated checklists on American tobacco baseball sets, including at least T210 and T213 (plus others, I assume). Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of this list, but a couple of articles providing additions to Wharton-Tigar's checklists subsequently appeared in Card Collector's Bulletin. One of these I've already posted: in the December 1, 1966 CCB (#165), Bob Solon wrote about T210s and the growth of that set's checklist over the years as more cards were discovered. Solon wrote that Charles Bray's 1950 Book of Checklists listed 531 cards in the set, "The 1960 Catalog jumped this number to 563, and our much-esteemed British traveler, E. C. Wharton-Tigar, raised the ante to 580 in his list #14." Solon then reported on the discovery of 29 more new T210s, bringing the total known to 609. I posted that article last year in this thread: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=225026. I didn't understand at the time what Solon meant by Wharton-Tigar's "list #14".

In the April 1, 1968 Card Collector's Bulletin (#173), Rich Egan had a short article (below) in which he mentioned Solon's additions to the T210 checklist in "Wharton-Tigar's Cartophilic Typed Listings #14", and then reported seven additions to Wharton-Tigar's checklist of T213-2 from the same publication. They include four team variations of known players, two previously unknown players, and the "Brooklyn" (vs. "Brooklyn Nat.") variation of Hummel. I don't know how many T213-2s Wharton-Tigar had in his 1966 checklist, but presumably it was between 139 (the number listed by Burdick in his 1948 checklist) and 144 (the 151 from the 1977 Sports Collectors Bible list, minus the 7 additions listed by Egan). If anybody knows the whereabouts of a copy of Cartophilic Typed Listing #14, I'd really love to see it.

[Leon]

Hi Jerome
Unfortunately for many T206 guys this thread definitively proves Coupons, all 3 series, were never supposed to be classified incorrectly as T206. They are and always will be T213s, just as Burdick classified them.
Sorry for your dismay... Coupons are T213s....not T206s

Originally Posted by DixieBaseball

Leon - You are correct! Well, sorta... T213-2 and T213-3 are not T206's.... but T213-1 probably are and belong to T206 era of numerious brands which include different shape cards like AB, as well as different stock cards like Coupon Type 1's. Burdick had it right originally, but found it easier to just lump the 1's with the other two Coupon brands for Cataloging purposes.... Obviously those two are later productions of the t206 era coupon card. 1909-11 had many brands. Coupon was one of them, hence a T206.

[buymycards]

Hi Leon,
I respectfully disagree. Let's say that someone comes across a "find" of Polar Bear cards that were made in 1914 and the style of the new Polar Bears are similar to T206's, but they have a blue caption and a glossy front. Does that mean that the original 1909-1911 Polar Bears are no longer T206's? No, it would mean that Polar Bear decided, a few years later, to reissue their original cards with in a slightly different style. Both styles would be Polar Bears, but the original Polar Bears are still T206's. In my opinion, this scenario applies to Coupons, and Burdick was wrong.

Rick