T218 question

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Posted By: boxingcardman

From “America’s Great Boxing Cards”:

The overall set contains 153 cards of various athletes and psuedo-athletes (among the latter category, my favorites are the champion pool players and bowlers; sorry, but anything I do better drunk isn’t a sport), including 61 boxers and one boxing referee.

The master set is huge by virtue of brand, factory and series designations. Mecca is the most common brand of T218. Hassan is slightly more difficult to find than Mecca, say on a 55:45 ratio. Burdick accurately reported three brands: Hassan, Mecca and Tolstoi. Over the years later publications “lost” Tolstoi, probably because the Tolstoi back is rare. The Mecca and the Hassan brand can be found with either factory 649 or factory 30. All Tolstoi cards carry a factory 30 designation. There is also a variation in the legend on the Mecca cards. The series situation further muddies the picture. The Hassan and Mecca cards carry either no series designation, or a designation of “series #2, 51 to 100”. Unfortunately for collectors, the same cards pop up in both series with both brands. Not even the Jack Johnson cards are series specific. Accordingly, for each card in the set there may be the following major back variations: Hassan and Hassan series II, Mecca and Mecca series II, Mecca “Series of Champions” logo, and Tolstoi, plus factory variations on the Hassan and Mecca cards. A master group could consist of 7 cards of the same fighter.

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