t205 vs t206...Which Do You Like Best?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by G1911

Do we know T205’s first cards preceded T201? T201 doesn’t have the write ups but it does have the stats. I don’t know the answer here, they are probably very close.

As for all sports in general, T205 wasn’t the first. There are some British sets with write ups of athletes that pre date it, there are some cabinet cards that aren’t really a full set, but even without them, T205 isn’t the first American sports card set with bios or stats. T218 (Q2 1910 for series 1) and T220 (late 1910) both precede it. The boxers include a write up and usually a list of fight results, the track athletes and swimmers a write up.

In the late 1880’s the N269 set included a biography of card back of all 50 pugilists, but not statistics.

Not saying these are the first either, can anyone think of earlier?

Don't disagree at all, but was thinking of the combining of the bios AND stats as what was a precursor of modern cards, and why they may be more historically significant that way. The T218 and T220 sets you referenced include athletes from multiple other sports, such as golf, boxing, track and field, and so on. And while some of these cards do include references to some fight results and such, my T205 reference was also referring to the way the stats were formatted as well, where they show annual stats of the player for past seasons, listed chronologically by year. Which is exactly how modern cards tend to be portrayed for the major U.S. sports of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. I didn't think I'd have to expand my explanation as the listing of some fight results on the back of a boxing card doesn't really correlate to modern sports cards and how the seasonal stats of players are shown, along with their bio information. But if you really think those boxing cards were the examples and forerunners used in the creation of modern U.S. cards for major sports and how a player's stats are shown and listed, be my guest. To my eye though, you're trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, and using a sport that doesn't exactly correlate to modern sports that have huge issues of modern cards. I know they still produce boxing cards today, but they are certainly nowhere near as popular, nor produced in quantities evenly remotely close to the volume of cards produced annually for the more popular and mainstream sports. And though not all-inclusive, I did a quick search of some modern boxing cards and didn't really see anything like the listed fights on some T218 cards. So if those T218 cards aren't really the inspiration for design and stat reporting on modern boxing cards, I would seriously doubt they were a forerunner and precursor for stat reporting on other modern major sport cards.

Now if there does somehow turn out to be another set of earlier, major sports cards than the T205 cards that list bios and statistics like they do on modern major sport cards, I'll be surprised. But the fact that we have to ask others for input and help in discovering if any such earlier sets exists underscores how rare and obscure such a set must be. And to me at least, would make such other set(s) all the more unlikely to be a model and inspiration for how stats are portrayed and shown on most modern major sport cards today.