Germany Schaefer T213's

[buymycards]

I have been looking for a T213-2 Germany Schaefer, Washington card for a while, and yesterday I received it. I was curious about this card so I did a little research, which resulted in a few things that I found that are interesting to me.

Even though Schaefer was playing for Washington in 1910 and had been playing baseball for several years, he is not included in the T213-1 set.

He was playing for Washington in 1914, which is shown on one of the T213-2 cards.

He was a player/manager in New York for one season, in 1916, where he only played in one game. This is shown on another T213-2 card.

He played in Newark in 1915, which isn't shown on a card, and his third T213-2 card has a K.C. Fed designation, but I can't find any records of him playing for KC.

He played his last game in Cleveland in April of 1918, and he died in May of 1919, but he is shown in the 1919 T213-3 set in his Washington uniform with his name spelled as "Schaeffer".

I would love to go back in time and talk to the people who produced the Coupon sets and talk about the reasons for the decisions on the way the cards were produced.

Thanks for looking. Rick

[ullmandds]

Interesting why they removedthe W from his uniform for the New York variation but not the KC?

[buymycards]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

Interesting why they removedthe W from his uniform for the New York variation but not the KC?

Yes, that was my thought too.

[Webster]

My guess is that the KC card was issued second (after Washington) while he was actually playing for Newark in the Federal League. Someone just got the teams wrong. When he went to New York, they redid the image and finally removed the “W”

[nolemmings]

Yes, it would seem logical that the t213-2 versions of Germany were issued as Washington 1914, Newark 1915 and New York 1916.

According to Lew Lipset's book, the t213-3s that contained no team designations were retired players, coaches, etc. Schaeffer (sic) was no longer active in 1919, so this would explain why that card has no team designation. It also suggests re-use of something other than the 1916 card, since that issue had no W emblem on the uniform.

The 1915 t213-2 is really interesting. Schaefer did not sign with anyone until around the 7th of March, so it seems the cards would not have been issued by then. In fact, there was some question about the Newark team itself, which wasn't even named until about that time and which still had its park under construction (it was a transplant for the Indianapolis Feds from 1914). A March 6 article in the Sporting Life referred to reports from Kansas City that doubted whether Newark would have a team. One wonders if those same reports had Schaefer landing in their town, and if so, that is what prompted Coupon to caption him there. Anyway, Schaefer signed with Newark.


Now at the end of April, for about a week or so, there was rumor and even a report of a multi-team trade that would have sent Germany Schaefer from Newark to Kansas City. That deal fell through, but it makes it curious as to whether that is when the t213-2s might have been printed. That is another possible explanation. From 4/24/1915:

from 5/1/1915:

In any event, it does not appear that placing Schaefer on the KC Packers was a simple or random mistake.

[buymycards]

Thanks, Todd. Good info.