Posted By:
CoreyRS.hanusPeter,
To answer your question, yes.
If you choose to take your own image of your T206 Cobb, however skillfully or clumsily you might do it, because the original copyright has expired, I believe you could copyright your unique image. And having done so, I believe you could require someone to first obtain your permission before using it to manufacture replica cards.
Think for a moment of the consequences of the contrary. After a 3-year investigation, I uncover a never-before-seen 19th century daguerreotype baseball image. Abraham Lincoln, on his campaign stop to New York in 1860, poses with Jim Creighton. Whatever copyright that image might have had has long since expired. For $10,000 consideration, I grant someone a license to reproduce it for his about-to-released book on 19th century baseball. That person hires a world-renowed photographer to come to my house to photograph it so as to precisely capture every nuance of the image. Being a dauguerreotype, seventeen takes over 5 hours are required to adequately capture the image. Madison Avenue's top advertising firm is then hired to market the book, and they use that image to highlight the marketing campaign. So what happens? One day after the book is released someone buys a copy and from it makes a reproduction of the image. He then takes out a full-page ad in the New York Times offering to sell 8x10 prints of the image for 50% of the list price of the book. Don't you think either I or the person to whom I granted a license to photograph the image would legally be able to force the person selling the reproductions to withdraw them from the market?
So if I'm correct and the person selling the reproductions could be legally forced to withdraw them from the market, I believe those same legal principles would also apply to your T206 Cobb.