T207....indeed a strange set....let' talk about it ?

[tbob]

Hi Drew, long time no hear Glad to know you are doing well and you don't hold it against it me that we had some spirited bidding wars. Your story about finding a dealer with all those T207s reminds me of what happened to me back in the early 90's at a National when I was putting together a T207 set, I asked a dealer if he had any T207s because none were displayed on his table and he pulled out two small boxes which contained almost the entire set wrapped in tissue paper. The cards were all EX to EXMT. My heart stopped and I bought a ton of them. Had I known about the wonders of the ATM back then, I would have bought them all. In the 15 years since then I have never had anything like this happen even remotely close at a National or show.
tbob

[timn1]

Hi Ron,

I see what you mean: holding back that many stars from the initial offerings of a set would be pretty unusual-- but not inconceivable.

However, in terms of raw numbers, I don't see why they couldn't have come up with at least 50 more MLB players, possibly 100 more.

If I am right that the scarcer Recruits and -- clearly --the players found with Broadleaf backs were issued in series of 50 at a later date than the first 100, I can imagine that one or possibly two more series of 50 were envisioned for the following season.

200 players/16 ML teams is 12.5 players per team. Given how many marginal players are among the 200, I can certainly see 6 more players per team being issued, which would make another 100. We could even go through 1912-13 rosters and come up with a likely list of possibilities.

Re Mitchell: not sure why you feel that the two Mitchell cards picture the same player. One is in a Cleveland uni, one in a Cincy uni. Even if they screwed up the writeups, it still seems like two different players, no?

Tim

[timn1]

Just playing around, I decided to see how difficult it would be to generate 100 more players for the phantom "T207 extension set." Pretty easy, actually! Based on the 1912 rosters, all these guys played regularly or semi-regularly (100 IP or 150+ AB), yet are not in T207. They WOULD have been in the next group if the ATC had not been broken up -- A lot of big names in there, even more than I thought--

Athletics
Frank Baker
Boardwalk Brown
Eddie Collins
Jack Coombs
Ben Egan
Byron Houck
Harl Maggert
Stuffy McInnis
Eddie Plank

Braves/Doves/Nationals/whatever
Buster Brown
Vin Campbell
Walt Dickson
Otto Hess
George Jackson
Bill Rariden

Browns
Mack Allison
George Baumgardner
Elmer Brown
Pete Compton
Frank LaPorte
Jack Powell
Del Pratt
Burt Shotton
Gus Williams

Cardinals
Jack Bliss
Rube Geyer
Arnold Hauser
Miller Huggins
Lee Magee
Mike Mowrey
Slim Sallee

Cubs
Jimmy Archer
Mordecai Brown
Larry Cheney
Johnny Evers
Solly Hofman
Jimmy Lavender
Lew Richie
Jimmy Sheckard
Heinie Zimmerman

Dodgers/Superbas
Frank Allen
George Cutshaw
Bob Fisher
John Hummel
Herbie Moran
Red Smith
Earl Yingling

Giants
Red Ames
Fred Merkle
Chief Meyers
Red Murray
Tillie Shafer
Jeff Tesreau

Indians/Naps
Ray Chapman
Art Griggs
Joe Jackson
Nap Lajoie
Steve O'Neill
Roger Peckinpaugh
Bill Steen

Phillies
Pete Alexander
Gavvy Cravath
Mickey Doolan
Bill Killifer
Hans Lobert
Fred Luderus
Sherry Magee
Erskine Mayer
Eppa Rixey
Tom Seaton

Pirates
Babe Adams
Art Butler
George Gibson
Claude Hendrix
Hans Wagner

Red Sox
Hugh Bedient
Hick Cady
Ray Collins
Jake Stahl

Reds
Johnny Bates
Rube Benton
Dick Egan
Jimmy Esmond
Dick Hoblitzell
Bert Humphries
Bobby Keefe
George Suggs

Senators
Carl Cashion
Eddie Foster
Chick Gandil
Bob Groom
Tom Hughes
Danny Moeller
Howie Shanks
Rip Williams

Tigers
Donie Bush
Ty Cobb
Sam Crawford
Jean Dubuc
Davy Jones
Joe Lake
Baldy Louden
Ossie Vitt
Ed Willett

White Sox
Wally Mattick
Ed Walsh

Yankees/Highlanders
Ray Caldwell
Hal Chase
Birdie Cree
Russ Ford
Earl Gardner
Roy Hartzell
Jack Martin
George McConnell
Hack Simmons
Dutch Sterrett
Jeff Sweeney
Guy Zinn

[sox1903wschamp]

Nice job on the list Tim. I see only 4 additional Red Sox on your list because that is one team that was well represented in the original set with most of the team already included. What is interesting is that the Red Sox are not well represented in T-206 (only 10 I think, maybe less with a couple of multi poses on Wagner and Stahl). Sure would have been nice to see an extension of the T-207 with more stars.

[marcdelpercio]

Thanks for the info Tim. I still consider your articles the "bible" of this set and I refer to them constantly. It is easy to imagine additional series scheduled to be released as with the T206 set. In that set there are obviously certain players/series that appear only with certain backs. So I imagine with the T207 set, there may have been other brand backs that were originally on board with the set and scheduled to release over the next several months. It is inexplicable to me, for example, that there are no Piedmont T207's as that brand was the flagship of the T206 and T205 sets. Perhaps that series was scheduled to release but was aborted due to the ATC breakup or other reasons. Or perhaps Piedmonts are the Anonymous Factory 25.

One thing that suggests AGAINST a future series with a lot of stars and other big name players is that the later Broadleaf/Cycle class series that WAS released and comprises a full 1/4 of the set, contains a grand total of zero Hall of Famers or major stars. Logically it doesn't seem likely to me that an even LATER series than that would suddenly be overflowing with all of the big name players which were omitted in the previous series.

[JasonL]

Thanks for starting this one, Ted. The most fascinating part about this set, to me (aside from the lack of starpower that has been discussed thoroughly here) is the card surface, or gloss that was mentioned once above in passing. Perhaps I am way off base, but I find that to be the most significantly unique thing about this set, when compared to its contemporary issues. Are there others with this same gloss? what is known about it? was it a new technique in making cards at the time? perhaps this might narrow down what printers could have been making these cards?
any thoughts on this?

I have endeavored to collect the Cubs team set. I have completed it, less the extremely tough Ward Miller. The degree to which the gloss is intact on some of the lionel Carter examples that I own, is fairly impressive, in my humble opinion. Here's half of the 10-card team set...very unique cards, indeed!

PS - Drew: I don't suppose you have a beater duplicate of Ward Miller ?

[toppcat]

Not sure it was mentioned prior but T207's seem to have more top to bottom miscuts than other tobacco sets. I wonder if the gloss added some friction in the cutting process that led to this?

[Bridwell]

Hi Tim,

That list you made of the next 100 players would make a great addition to the set. I'd certainly be collecting them, if they were made. Lots of big names in there.

I'm thinking that the designer of the set was unable to secure the written authorizations of most of the star players. I do agree that there are enough unpublished players that the original design could have been 300 players, instead of 200. They may have, very simply, sent authorization requests to every team, who handed them out to each player. Some came back signed and some didn't. They may have tried a 2nd time when there was light response. They probably weren't offering any payment, so the stars may have passed on signing it. By then, the stars were getting paid for various endorsements but the common players were happy to just be included. Once they had about 150 authorizations they started making the cards. They later added another series to reach 200. That would explain Marc's observation about the lack of stars in the Broadleaf class/series which was printed a little later. The lesser players might even have asked to be included, while the top players didn't care either way. Maybe a few more authorizations trickled in, but not enough to add another series of 50. Or production was halted, by then, for other reasons. Just wild theories.

Ron

[tedzan]

Sorry guys, but I don't agree with the contention that the 1911 divesture of the ATC monopoly had anything to do with
the make up of the T207 set. I base this on the fact that American Lithographic continued printing white-bordered sets
(T213, T214, and T215) well into 1919. And, their T205, T201, and T202 sets from 1911 to 1912. One constant factor in
all these sets is the repetiveness of the same subjects (stars and commons) from the T206 set.

Therefore, as I've speculated in my initial post here....this set was not printed by American Litho. For whatever reasons,
ATC contracted a different printer to produce these cards. And, therein lies the enigma of why so many of the usual stars
and commons particular to all the above noted Tobacco sets are not in the T207. In my opinion, this is really the only ex-
planation that makes sense.....what are your thoughts on this ?

Eventually, given a sufficient amount of research, we will discover who printed the T207's.


TED Z

[marcdelpercio]

Ted,
Are you suggesting that the players contracted directly with the printing company rather than with ATC? Otherwise, I don't understand why the use of a different printer would affect the player selection as presumably all of the same players would remain under contract for any ATC release, regardless of the printer they used.

[kmac32]

Jason L,

You have one more than me but love the Cubbies

[tedzan]

Originally, in the early months of 1909 the Greater New York Baseball Association (GNYBA) was mailing out letters to
the players on behalf of American Lithographic Co. seeking their permission to portray them in the forthcoming T206
set. The well known Neal Ball letter is an example of this. And, I would say this practice continued by GNYBA (or some
other intermediary) when new players were added in subsequent sets of that era.

So, my point here is, that the Rights to portray the players was not directly related to the American Tobacco Co. (ATC);
but, the outfit doing the printing.

The influence that ATC had in the printing of the cards was related to the advertising info on the backs of these cards.
For instance, in the ATC divesture period (early 1911), when the American Beauty, Piedmont, or Sweet Caporal brands
were transferred to the L & M plant in Durham, NC....the backs were changed to reflect this new Factory #42 location.


TED Z

[marcdelpercio]

Thanks for the info Ted. I always assumed that the players contracted with the ATC as suggested by the 1912 Sporting News article which stated that the tobacco manufacturers collaborated with sportswriters to help secure the printing rights of the players (or at least Wagner specifically). I figured that once the rights had been secured by ATC, they would then sub-contract with the printer to physically produce the cards.

I realize that the Ball letter does directly reference American Litho so perhaps they retained the printing rights rather than the tobacco companies. If that is the case, then your T207 theory certainly is plausible.

[Bridwell]

Good points, Ted and Marc. Perhaps American Litho was unable to strike an agreement with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. after the break-up of ATC. If I was with ATC, and had been using American Litho, I would not want American Litho to just take the authorizations from the baseball players and create a set for Liggett & Myers. That would be disloyal to ATC, and there was probably a contract between ATC and American Litho about the development of the T206 set. ATC & Liggett became competitors in 1911. As we've shown, most or all of the T207's were distributed by Liggett & Myers, not ATC.

Furthermore, the T207 cards seem very different from T206's and other issues. Another observation is that none of the images used are the same as the T206 images, I don't believe. It certainly seems likely, as Ted said, that a different printer & designer was used. If American Litho already had the authorization and the artwork, they could have included Cobb, Eddie Collins, Evers and other stars that were in T206. They could have easily made sepia-toned images from the T206 images. But they didn't.

That's why, Ted, I feel the ATC break-up had an influence on T207.

Ron

[tedzan]

I see your point since the great majority of the T207 backs are Recruit; therefore, the T207's were inserted
in the L & M packs. But, we still don't know what printing company L & M contracted to produce the T207's.

But, we do know that the other 1912 BB card set, ATC's T202, was produced by American Lithographic, ad-
vertising the Hassan brand (which was retained by ATC). And,the T202's virtually include a full complement
of the stars and regular players of the T205 set..

Here is the bigger picture of how the various brands were allocated amongst the four Tobacco Company's in
the Fall of 1911 by the divesture ruling.


Liggett & Myers was given about 28 % of the cigarette market:

American Beauty
Coupon
DRUMmond
Fatima
Home Run
Imperiales
King Bee
Piedmont
Recruit
Red Man


P. Lorillard received 15 % of the nation's tobacco business:

Egyptian Deities
Helmar
Honest
Mogul
Murad
Mogul
Polar Bear
Turkish Trophies
Union Leader


American Tobacco retained 37 % of the tobacco market:

Bull Durham
Hassan
Mecca
Sweet Caporal
Tuxedo

R. J. Reynolds received 19% of the tobacco market.



TED Z

[Bridwell]

Hi Ted,

I agree with what you're saying. You can definately add Napoleon to the Liggett & Myers list. I have a dated cigarette pack to prove it, dated 7/1/1912 with L & M logo. I also saw a web site that claimed that Broadleaf and Cycle went to L & M, as well. One site I saw, said that 15 smaller domestic brands went to L & M, besides the ones you listed. Thus I think that would include Napoleon, Broadleaf and Cycle.

Ron

[Bridwell]

I was watching 2 auctions on ebay today: a T207 Matty McIntyre SGC 30 and an E93 Davy Jones SGC 30. They were both advertised as a 'tough card'. The McIntyre sold for $32.99 and the Jones went for $133.50.

Here's the populations of the 2 cards (SGC/PSA combined):

McIntyre: 31 graded, with 18 better
Jones: 59 graded, with 32 better

T207 seems like an undervalued set, compared to E93. I would think that the McIntyre is the tougher card. Granted, the Jones was a better looking card for an SGC 30, but it sold for 4 times as much!

Ron

[marcdelpercio]

Geez...don't say that Ron. These are tough enough already. The last thing we need is more people realizing just how scarce and difficult this set is

[JasonL]

if you factor in a particular BIN listing, you would think otherwise...check out the $2000 ask for the Ward Miller which is barely a card! outrageous. That is one of the set's toughest cards, no doubt, but that is just silly.

(until someone pays for it, then I am the stupid one, I suppose!)

[tbob]

Originally Posted by Bridwell

I was watching 2 auctions on ebay today: a T207 Matty McIntyre SGC 30 and an E93 Davy Jones SGC 30. They were both advertised as a 'tough card'. The McIntyre sold for $32.99 and the Jones went for $133.50.

Here's the populations of the 2 cards (SGC/PSA combined):

McIntyre: 31 graded, with 18 better
Jones: 59 graded, with 32 better

T207 seems like an undervalued set, compared to E93. I would think that the McIntyre is the tougher card. Granted, the Jones was a better looking card for an SGC 30, but it sold for 4 times as much!

Ron

Ron- I agree the T207 is an undervalued set. I didn't have any problem finding McIntyres when I put the sets together but the Jones WAS a tough card to find in the E93. I stick by my guns on that one, it was the last card I found each time I put together a nice E93 set. Maybe there's been a lot of resubmissions on that one but anytime you can find a nice Davy Jones, you grab it.

[tedzan]

I reluctantly started collecting this set in the late 1980's, since I picked up a Lowdermilk. I figured that I had it made
by starting off with this "toughie". I was naive, because I quickly discovered that Lewis and Miller were tougher. Any-
how, here are some tidbits I've gathered regarding these three cards......

Lou Lowdermilk.....pitched in 16 games in 1911 for the St Louis Cardinals and only in 4 games in 1912. So, my guess
is that he was short-printed since he had a short career in the majors.

Ward Miller....In 1911 he played with Montreal (Eastern Lge.). Joined the Cubs in 1912 for 86 games and batted .307.
My thinking is that there was a final print run of T207's late in 1912 (as there are quite a few subjects in this set that
started their Major Lge. careers in 1912). Ward Miller would have been printed in last series. And, typical of many last
series press runs, they most likely were short-printed. Here is a 1913 photo featuring Miller and his teammates at the
Polo Grounds......
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library...ss/3641570218/

"Irving" Lewis....a big mystery, as he appears no where in the BB books. I think this card is an error. The T207 printer's
must have confused him with Jack (John David) Lewis who played in 18 games for Boston (AL) in Sept 1911. Therefore,
due to his very brief career, they printed very few cards of this "Irving Lewis" guy.

Vic Saier....wasn't tough for me. I lucked out in the early '90s, as I acquired a 40-card lot of T207's that included Saier.

Anyhow, let's hear your thoughts on these T207 toughies, or any others that you found difficult to get ?


TED Z

[tedzan]

Hey guys,

Anyone out there figure out who the printer was that had barrels of BROWN ink to print the T207's ?


TED Z

[Bridwell]

Hi Ted,

Keith Olbermann wrote a good article on Irving Lewis and his 'career'. See:

http://research.sabr.org/journals/ir...-who-never-was

Ron

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Hey guys,

Anyone out there figure out who the printer was that had barrels of BROWN ink to print the T207's ?


TED Z

Ted - A real shot in the dark but the pack in your initial post reads "H. Ellis & Co. Baltimore."

There was a large lithograph company named A. Hoen & Company based in Baltimore with another factory in Richmond, VA.

A. Hoen printed the covers for cigar boxes. The link below contains the line "In the newer Richmond plant the quality of inks and paper stock, as well as the multi-layer lithography process itself saw great advances, to the point where most Hoen-produced covers and cigar boxes from the 1890s forward still retain their original hues after more than a century. "

http://www.perfessorbill.com/artists/ahoen.shtml

[tedzan]

Thanks....I hadn't seen that article.

But, it still leaves me wondering about this Irving Lewis card.


TED Z

[tedzan]

Tim

I have researched A. Hoen & Co. and cannot find anything that suggests that they printed the T207's.
Another Litho. company in Baltimore was the Isaac Friedenwald Co. that produced colorful non-sports
cards at the turn of the Century. But, I could not find any ties indicating that they printed the T207's.


TED Z

[tedzan]

Your earlier discussion regarding the Anonymous backs is interesting, as it reinforces my speculation
that an independent printing firm produced the T207's.

1st........T207's that have Anonymous backs with "Factory #3 Louisiana" were indeed destined to the
COUPON cigarette factory.
2nd.......T207's that have Anonymous backs with "Factory #25" were most likely destined to the SWEET
CAPORAL cigarette factory in Richmond, Va.

Federal Law required that L & M identify the Factory #'s on the backs of all cards. However, they could
not print their corresponding brand names on the T207 cards, since ATC still owned the Copyright's to
them. This factual is substantiated since American Litho. (ALC), subsequently, issued their T213-2 & 3
sets with the COUPON brand name.
Now consider this, if ALC had printed the T207's, they would have printed these brand names (instead
of leaving them Anonymous).


Recall, the Fall of 1911 ATC divesture ruling assigned ATC and L & M the following tobacco brands........

American Tobacco retained 37 % of the tobacco market including:

Bull Durham
Hassan
Mecca
Sweet Caporal
Tuxedo

Liggett & Myers was given about 28 % of the cigarette market including:

American Beauty
Coupon
DRUMmond
Fatima
Home Run
Imperiales
King Bee
Piedmont
Recruit
Red Man



TED Z

[marcdelpercio]

That makes a lot of sense Ted. Though I have long suspected the Factory 3 Anons to be an intended Coupon release, it does seem strange that they would use entirely different artwork (and quite possibly another printer as you have suggested) and then revert back to American Litho with previously used artwork just a couple of years later with the T213's. Perhaps L&M was in a transitional phase and legally unable to use American Litho during the divestiture procedings (which would have been occurring just as the T207's were beginning the design phase) but then was able to renegotiate with American Litho in time for the kickoff of the T213-2 release 2 years later.

[Bridwell]

After working on sets of T206 for 25 years and T207 for the last 2 years, I've noticed some interesting comparisons between the 2 sets.

The most common commons in T207 have 70-80 graded examples (SGC & PSA). The most common commons in T206 have 400+ graded examples (SGC & PSA). Yet those commons sell for about the same price as T206's, in similar condition. I guess there is about 5 times more collector demand for T206's than T207's.

The toughest non-HOF's in T207 have only 20-25 graded. Southern Leaguers in T206 have about 200 graded. The tougher non-HOF's in T206 (such as Dahlen/Brooklyn or Frank Smith/Chi.&Boston have about 180 graded.

So the ratio of tough T207 pop numbers to commons is less than 1:3, while the tough T206's are in greater supply and have a ratio of almost 1:2. Hence, the tougher T207's are surprisingly hard to find, if any condition. They can sell for ridiculous prices, sometimes, while other times can be found at near the common price. The opportunity to find some rare cards at great deals helped draw me to keep working on this set. From the set registries and networking, I can identify about 10 sets, or near sets of T207's. There may be a few other 'raw' sets out there. With a total population of 20-25 of some cards, that leaves very few T207 cards in circulation for collectors to bid on. The 20-25 pop number might even be overstated, since there have been some crossovers occuring in T207's. There seem to be about 20-30 players in T207 that are the toughest ones to find. The toughest of all are from the Broadleaf Class, which includes Broadleaf, Cycle and Anonymous backs.

The most common T207's are all from the Recruit Class, which includes Recruit, Napoleon and Anonymous backs. The 10 cards I researched seem to have high populations of Recruit backs, but hardly any Napoleon backs and I'm thinking there are no Anonymous backs of these. The 10 sample cards are: Devlin, Konetchy, Wilie, H. McIntire, Wolverton, Devore, Simon, Crandall, Knabe and Covington. So it leads to more theories. I'd say that a portion of the Recruit Series cards, perhaps 50 players, were double printed with Recruit backs, but not made with Anonymous backs. I have no idea why. That would help explain why some Recruit Class cards have populations of 25-35, while many others have pops of 60-80. It also seems that the low pop Recruit Class cards are regularly found with Anonymous backs, when they do turn up.

Perhaps T207 collectors can share their thoughts and keep this thread going... As Ted said, it is a very strange set.

Ron R