Were the T210's actually a 1910 issue or were they issued in 1911?

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by Pat R

If the March 14 1910 newspaper article is true and the photo's for series 2 weren't even taken yet do you think that series 2-8 could have been done in 6 months? It took over 2 years to finish the t206 printings.

I do not follow this set closely, so others more into it can comment, but yes, I believe the cards could have been produced in a few months without great difficulty. I have not seen evidence that the series were issued sequentially rather than at or near one time. I always considered the set as having been identified by series simply to associate with specific leagues. Although I suppose it is possible that after some initial series showed promise the makers decided to issue more, but I am skeptical, especially as the Southern Association is the 8th and final series and was a very popular and prominent league, not likely an afterthought. Then again, Series 6, 7 & 8 are considered by many to be more difficult to obtain, which could point to a later release date, at least for those.

I would guess that it was quite common to take both team and player photos before and at the start of every season, for use in dope books/guides, local newspapers, etc., and that it therefore created no particular burden to line up the T210 photo shoots early in the year. As for production, these cards are not lithographs like T206, so there was no real artwork or multi-color inking involved– just a simple B&W photo with an even simpler nameplate. The posters here who delve into the printing and production process may chime in, but it seems to me that the turnaround time would be far less for the T210s.

I have scans of a great many of the cards and at one time years ago researched player/team combinations. I can look again, but my general recall is that many, many players are depicted on teams they played for in 1910 but not 1911, and essentially none had it the other way around. I realize that this does not disprove an argument that they were photographed in 1910 and not released until the following year, but that would sure leave a lot of outdated cards being placed in the market. I bring this up because it was not an uncommon occurrence for just 1910– it happened a lot back then that players changed teams and leagues regularly. It seems to me the makers would have been in tune to that and it would not have been overly difficult for them to simply update the new team affiliations on their very basic nameplate, drop/add players or shift a player into a new series if he changed leagues– all in time for the 1911 season if that was the targeted release date.

Finally, I took a quick look at Lew Lipset’s encyclopedia and saw that the Portsmouth team associated with many of the Series 2 players actually moved to Petersburg in July, 1910 yet the cards all name only Portsmouth. This shows that series to have been done before the move, so again, unless these various series were spread out well over time and/or were sequentially released, 1910 is a pretty safe bet. Also, note that T211 Red Sun, which uses many of the same photos as are found in series 8 of T210, are also considered as released in 1910, so it appears it was not a problem getting the photos taken and the cards produced in that year.

EDITED TO CLARIFY: I said the T210s were not lithographs like T206 with multi colors and artwork, but they actually were lithographs--just not in color and with very little artwork (mostly whitewashed backgrounds and the occasional change of team log)o