T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Jason Carota</b><p>Since the three teams listed in the title are in the T200 set, is there any reason why Fatima didn't issue players from those teams with the rest of the T222's?

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>I'm guessing that maybe they just didn't get around to it.<br /><br />Seems that when they started issuing cards with Fatima cigarettes, they mentioned 100 photos on the back. There are 52 baseball players, 4 other athletes, and 4 actors... that's 60 cards. I think they planned more. They either couldn't or didn't issue all at once. And they quit production before completing 100, or moving beyond.<br /><br />About 8 years ago I talked with a fellow who collected Fatimas as a kid. I found him because of an article he'd written in a 1920s Baseball Magazine. His address was in my home town, I figured there might be old Baseball Magazines in the attic there. When I asked some quite senior folks about where the guy had lived in the 20's, they discussed it a bit, and finally one of them said, "Why don't you ask him?" I asked what he meant, he told me the guy's still alive, retired, in Fairhope, Alabama. So I called him! We talked about his BM letter, his going to school, college, teaching journalism, being a newspaper editor... at the end I asked him if he collected cards, thinking he might recall T206. Yes, he collected cards, they were really pictures, I probably had not heard of them, big cards. I asked if they had Fatima on the back and he laughed, saying yes! He told me he never could complete the set of 100. He had about 300 of them, but not 100 different. I asked him what happened to them. He said he went to college, and when he came back home that summer, his Mom (are you ready for this???) had thrown them away.... that would have been about 1930. I didn't tell him what Fatima cards sold for nowadays. Seems like those moms were after cards long ago, way before my mom dealt with my cards. And you know, if Moms hadn't been pitching cards all these years, they wouldn't be nearly as valuable.

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Jason Carota</b><p>Great story, Frank. Thanks for the reply.

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>jay behrens</b><p>Old person...BM...I was thinking something other than Baseball Magazine and wondering why you asked him about that.<br /><br />Jay<br><br>I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Mom left my cards from the late 50's alone (I disposed of them in 1963 by selling "bricks" of nrmt of 100 for like a quarter each, no matter how many Mantles were in the brick.<br />BUT my mom threw out the Fantastic Four #2-30 and Spiderman #1-30 along with tons of other nrmt silver age comics I had accumulated, while I was off in college. I showed a few years ago what an almost mint condition Amazing Spiderman #1 was going for these days and she just smiled and said, well, we needed the room <img src="/images/sad.gif" height=14 width=14>

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Joe D.</b><p>Frank and Bob - great stories!<br /><br />I would like to know more about how these cards were produced (T222s or the T200s)....<br />they are actual photographs - so I have to assume very small runs for these cards?<br /><br />Its not like a printing press where you could print thousands every minute.<br /><br />These things had to be developed.... and I don't think they had a quick way of doing it back then...<br />no One-Hour-Photo service that I know of.<br /><br /><br />Anyone have info on their production?<br />(sounds like a great question for cycleback.)<br /><br />The answer to how they were produced may help us track down why the teams Jason mentioned were left out.

T222 Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh
 

Posted By: <b>Jason Carota</b><p>Great point, Joe. I didn't even consider how they were produced.