The Single Greatest Year.

[Casey2296]

In an effort to derail members here from attacking each other on silly topics like politics, religion, or which way to hang the toilet paper (probably the most important of the three, other than the DH rule) I'm curious what you think is the single greatest year of pre-war baseball card issues is.

1903? Breisch Williams
1908? Rose postcard
1909? P150 portraits, E99's, Western Playgrounds. Not bad.
1910? Candy cards? PC796?
1911? More Candy and tobacco cards?
1914? Cracker Jacks and Texas Tommy's? Hard to beat.
1933? Nuff said.

Remember, it has to be the greatest overall year for pre-war baseball cards. Make your case and for gawds sake post em' if you got em'. Please and thank you, I need a break and want to talk about baseball cards.

[Vintagecatcher]

1912 is my favorite year!

C46s, T202s, T207s, 1912 Zeenuts, and Home Run Kisses!

Patrick

[frohme]

1912 gets my vote as well!

[DeanH3]

1910 was pretty prolific.

[sreader3]

1909.

The year ATC introduced the baseball men and the frying sized kids went wild.

The launch of T206 in the early days of summer of 1909 set-off a veritable frenzy among American boys. An August 9, 1909 article entitled “The Small Boy’s Mania” in the Charlotte Observer bore the subtitle “Pictures of ‘Baseball Men’ More Sought after than Gold,” and went on to describe the T206 craze thusly:

The amount of interest displayed by the small boys of the community over the pictures of National and American League baseball players that come, one in every pack, of Piedmont cigarettes, is remarkable. Since the beginning of summer, when the American Tobacco Company commenced putting the pictures in their packages of cigarettes, the small boy has been more or less of a nuisance by stopping young and old men as they walked along the street begging for “baseball men.” The collections have become a mania. Whenever a new shipment of cigarettes is opened, the small boy congregates around the stand and every purchaser is besieged, and not allowed to leave until the picture has been forced from him. Saturday, a frying-sized kid purchased $1 worth of cigarettes, and after securing the desired pictures, peddled the smokeables to the passers on the street. Often two packages of cigarettes were offered for five cents, but the pictures had already been extracted. The children match one another for the picture and the winner walks away exultant with the entire collection of his friends in his hands. The gambling amounts to guesswork. While the picture is flying in the air one of the boys calls the side it will fall on, face up or down. If in his guess he is correct, the picture goes to him, otherwise he has lost one of his own pictures.
More especially are the likenesses of Ty Cobb and Hans Wagner desired, and until a week ago only a few pictures of Cob [sic] had been found, two of these being in the possession of the Buford Hotel cigar stand. Last Thursday in a new shipment of cigarettes received at the Wilson Drug Store, on East Trade street, 13 pictures of Cobb were found in the first installment opened. The boys of the street went wild. Securing money from every available source they began purchasing from the W. L. Hand Drug Store. Before night over 3,000 cigarettes had been sold by one firm and on the streets 5-cent packages of cigarettes were being sold for as little as a cent apiece.

[Piratedogcardshows]

1910- T210, T209 and T206 were still in packs.

[ALBB]

1933..who ran for President that year ? LOL

[Ricky]

Has to be 1910 and 1933. Tons of tobacco and candy issues in 1910, highlighted by T206 and E90... then Goudey, Delong, George Miller, Buttercream etc in 1933.

[darwinbulldog]

I'd take 1910, but it seems like 1887 should be in the running.

[obcbobd]

1933

[rats60]

For me it is 1911. You have all the t206 cards available plus the introduction of t205 cards. You also have the release of t3 Turkey Reds. The 3 best pre WWI sets all available in the same year.

You also have t201, t5, D304, E94, M110, M116 and the end of the W600 set.

[T205 Hunter]

1911
T205s and the last six months to get T6s.




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[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I'd take 1910, but it seems like 1887 should be in the running.

Agree w/ 1887
tons of baseball issues, my favorite, N284 Buchners

[TobaccoKing4]

I think 1911 is the clear cut winner and that it isn't even close for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

[darwinbulldog]

They're not all great, but 1910 does have the most sets listed in the OC chronological list -- E91C plus all of these:

[egri]

I'm going to say 1941. The last, and in my opinion, best Play Ball set was on the shelves, and kids could relatively easily obtain earlier cards by harassing their older brothers for their Goudeys and Diamond Stars, and fathers/uncles for their tobacco cards and CJs. Then while kids were collecting these cards brand-new, they were watching Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak and Ted Williams hit .406.

[Tao_Moko]

1909 was still in a decade of economic growth(4%), pre depressions, pre WWI and the birth of the most prolific set in baseball card history. Gets my vote.

[Joe_G.]

I'm biased, but 1887 is a strong contender . . .

Cigarette pack inserts skyrocket as the industry transitions from paper packs to cardboard slide & shell. Practically every subject matter would follow including baseball.

1887 Greatness
Old Judge, Gypsy Queen, Buchner Gold Coin, K-Bats (players & team cards), Four Base Hits, as well as the first baseball currency issues.

1888 - Strong Follow-up
A&G Champions, Goodwin Champions, Kimball Champions, Yum Yums, four different SF Hess baseball issues, OJs (both cigarette cards & cabinets), more currency, and the first gum issues courtesy G&B and HD Smith (Y95 Scrapps).

[brianp-beme]

1910 is my vote, but the whole stretch from 1909 through 1912 includes a huge chunk of the Deadball era cards that a lot of us collect, and blows away all other four year stretches hands down. A beater collector like myself thanks all the producers of the various E and T cards (definitely the heyday for these ACC classifications) for their overwhelming prolific-ness during this time.

Below I have depicted just a small percentage of the sets that were available during that 4 year period.

Brian

[SD]

Goudey, diamond stars, delong, George miller, & orbits. All beautiful sets

[abothebear]

just kidding