Eddie Collins RC
 

I had always thought the tested wisdom the Eddie Collins rookie card was that it was the 1909 T206 Series 150. But now I understand that it is supposed to be the E95 Philadelphia Caramel also from 1909. I don't where this comes from, REA perhaps, so not sure if the E95's were issued earlier in the year or what. Any thoughts?

This is taken from the OldCardboard site. Hope it helps...

The earliest card picturing Eddie Collins originates from the immensely popular 1902-11 W600 Sporting Life Cabinets set. Another popular early Collins card was produced during the 1907-09 time frame by noted photographer, Carl Horner, for his Studio Cabinets issue. Additionally, Collins would appear on one of the most widely collected postcard sets of the era, the 1907-09 Novelty Cutlery Postcards issue. Subsequently, a Collins card was included in the 1909 E91 American Caramel set. Finally, a tough to find early Collins card was produced in conjunction with the W555 strip card set.



.

With respect to the oldcardboard website, we have all subsequently learned that the Novelty Cutlery PC's were actually produced c1910 (not '07-'09).

The W600 of Collins is extremely rare with only about 3 known copies.

Here's my "rookie" card of Collins. It's not a card, but rather a cabinet of Collins c1906 during his time at Columbia University:

http://photos.imageevent.com/derekgr...%20Collins.jpg

Minor point of clarification. Eddie C. doesn't appear in the T206 150 series -- only the 350 series.

Unless perhaps you are talking about THIS version, whose production date is unknown . . .

http://t206resource.com/Olbermann%20Proofs.html

and with respect to your specific question, for the longest time, it was believed that the rookie card (in the most strict sense of the word "card") of Collins was the 1908 E102 series. Subsequent research showed that this issue didn't come out until 1909. That said, any card issued in 1909 might be considered his rookie, including the 1909 T206 (series of 150) - if there is such a thing, E95, E91, E102, etc.

To each his own.

Hi Derek,
3 known w600s?
That would make E. Collins as tough as Burkett.
Where did you get that # from?
Jerry Spillman's article in Old Cardboard didn't have E. Collins listed as so difficult.

In my opinion, the best E. Collins rookie is the W600. As with many of the others issues late in the series, 1906-11, the Collins is very tough to find as is the Ty Cobb...

The only one I've seen over the past ten years is the one I owned (which has changed hands a number of times over the past few years). When I purchased it in 2012, it was previously owned by Kevin Struss, who stated that he had only seen/known of three over his 20 years of tracking the set. Kevin is a pretty reliable source.

The W600 for Collins was issued in 1907. Keep in mind that Collins was more of a utility player up until 2009. If you had a hard-earned $0.10 (I believe that's what they cost back in the day), would you be looking to pick up a cabinet of a utility middle infielder? If you can help me identify more copies of Collins, I'd be happy to know of them.

1909 e91

Did you own the one that is missing a piece of the cab?
The only other one I have seen was auctioned in a group of 3 hofers by Heritage

Yep...that was mine (for a relatively short period of time).

Just resurrecting this to add that I've never seen or heard of a fourth copy. There's the one in poor condition with the chunk missing from the border, the trimmed one in the REA lot, and the proper one pictured on OldCardboard.com.

What points to the cabinet being issued earlier than 1909 though? Only the 1902 copies carry a date and the only other way to know a specific year is if there was a team change.

The Sporting Life first offered its customers Eddie Collins as a choice for their cabinet in their November 2, 1907 issue. Collectors often date cards to the earlies possible date that they could have been produced.