Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
You can love T206s all you want, but the T205 cards are truly the forerunner and very first appearance/example of what we think of as modern baseball cards today, in regards to including player information and statistics. In fact, it could be argued that T205s were also the model for all other modern cards for all other sports that now include player and statistical information as well.
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Do we know T205’s first cards preceded T201? T201 doesn’t have the write ups but it does have the stats. I don’t know the answer here, they are probably very close.
As for all sports in general, T205 wasn’t the first. There are some British sets with write ups of athletes that pre date it, there are some cabinet cards that aren’t really a full set, but even without them, T205 isn’t the first American sports card set with bios or stats. T218 (Q2 1910 for series 1) and T220 (late 1910) both precede it. The boxers include a write up and usually a list of fight results, the track athletes and swimmers a write up.
In the late 1880’s the N269 set included a biography of card back of all 50 pugilists, but not statistics.
Not saying these are the first either, can anyone think of earlier?