T205 production time

[conor912]

So I was reading an old Lew Lipset book today and in the 1911 T202 section he states that there are only two players (Joe Wood and Walt Blair) who are in the T202 set but not T205. He then goes on to say that his theory for this is that although Wood and Blair started their careers in 1907-08, the photographs for the T205 set had already been taken by then. This would imply that the T205 set took at least 4-5 years to produce. However, there are several players, including Zack Wheat, who debuted after Wood and Blair but somehow made it into the T205 set, so it appears his logic doesn't hold up. Does anyone have any more info on this? I find it hard to believe that they'd spend that long on a set that was essentially going to be given away for free, but I guess I wouldn't be shocked if it took that long to do all of that art work and design.....however, it still wouldn't explain how players who debuted in 1909-10 made it into the set but two guys from 1907-08 didn't.

[tedzan]

Early in 1911, American Lithographic (ALC) started producing their new gold-bordered series of cards with the very colorful and ornate Military Men (T80) cards
being one of their first. This is known from an ALC ledger (dated Feb 1911). Followed by various gold-bordered Tobacco cards, of which the T205 BB card series
is included during 1911. And, the T205 series is concluded with the production of the Minor League cards (circa late 1911 - early 1912).

T80....Spring of 1911






T205....late 1911 - early 1912

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TED Z
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[EvilKing00]

yes wood & blair are not in t205 but in the t202. But There are many players from this time not in the T205 set, stars even

Would of been sweet to see a joe jackson or honus wagner glod border. Why werent they amongst many others included? Was there supposed tonbe another batch printed? Probably. But We probably will never know, 100%, the biggest mysyery, each card was printed saying 400 designs.... where are they? Only 200 plus accounted for

[conor912]

Though a Shoeless Joe would have sweet, indeed, I'm actually glad a lot of sets from that time are missing a major star or two. As a set collector it makes completion more financially viable

I was aware that there were many players missing, I just thought it was curious that he wrote that the reason Wood and Blair were missing was because the photos had already been taken by 1907....a good 4 years before the set was released. The book I saw it in is a good 30 years old, so new info may have surfaced since then proving this theory wrong...

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by conor912

Though a Shoeless Joe would have sweet, indeed, I'm actually glad a lot of sets from that time are missing a major star or two. As a set collector it makes completion more financially viable

I was aware that there were many players missing, I just thought it was curious that he wrote that the reason Wood and Blair were missing was because the photos had already been taken by 1907....a good 4 years before the set was released. The book I saw it in is a good 30 years old, so new info may have surfaced since then proving this theory wrong...

I don't have the book in front of me, but I assume he meant the pictures used were from pre-1907, not that they specifically took pictures for the T205 cards and used them. Some of the T206 pictures used were at least six years old. They didn't take pictures for the sets, they used available pictures at the time.

The simple solution might be that the T205 set was supposed to be bigger, and if you look on some of the backs, they say "400 subjects", which is a lot more than they actually made. Could be that they didn't get around to the other two players.

[tedzan]

Hey guys,

Let's look at the bigger picture in 1911......1911 was a very busy year at American Lithographic, for they produced
a heck of a lot of pretty looking cardboard with their Baseball and non-Sports sets. For example............


T80 Military Series (Spring 1911)....50 cards




T205 BB....208 cards

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T201 MECCA BB....50 cards






Birds T42 (50 cards) and T43 (30 cards)




T77 Lighthouse cards and T205 Minor Leaguers (circa 1911 > 1912)






T99 Sights & Scenes of the World

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Plus, here are more Gold-Border Tobacco issues......

T56 Emblems....50 cards

T57 Fables....100 cards

T69 Historic Homes....50 cards


TED Z
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