Caramel Card set collecting

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Posted By: BCDaniels

five years ago we had this discussion on the Fullcount board and I mentioned I purchased an Evers E-94 from Brian Wentz ala 1989 I believe at a San Francisco show and he flaked off fragments of the top right corner exactly as Bob described and we had to haggle out what to do with the card after Michael saw the tiny flakes on their display case. It's funny because Michael remebered the incident and we interacted on the subject on John's board maybe seven years later.

Anyway,there are certain cards within each of these issues that are super tough. Examples~

E-92 Wagner fielding in Croft's Cocoa
E-102 Miller fielding
& the Miller batting pose!
and how many Matty's have you seen from the E-91 set? I have seen 5 in over 30 years total.

Pete made a point a year ago or so that E-98's are way harder to find then E-93's and that has proven to easily be true. A couple of the commons are very hard to locate if ever.

Croft's Cocoas that are either NOT diamond cut or have 80/20 top/bottom combos when they are cut decently? And the ones that are cut somewhat centered usually have very bold backs that you can see the border of on the front!

And here we are just talking garden variety E-card sets as oppossed ot super rare ones most of us who collect then look for just a nice type card of like the E-104-3s or E-107S (this would exclude the super brockelman collection of these)

There are four E-101's you almost never see-

Barry
Seigle (horizontal)
Doyle throwing
Miller-fielding

the Wagner fielding and Evers in this set seem very tough as well. In fact, the Wagner fielding seems very tough in most of the more "commercial" E-card sets!

Here is a registered set members comments on the E102s he loves~

Owner's Comments:
The E102 set comprised of 29 cards is achievable, but with significant obstacles: It has four extremely rare variations most advanced collectors would find difficult (Doyle Batting, Miller Fielding, Wagner Fielding, and Schmidt); the population of PSA graded cards makes a PSA graded set improbable (a set would be roughly 1/4 of the known PSA 138 card-plus population), and there is the Cobb rookie controversy. Many feel the E102 is Cobb’s true Rookie card. Sure there’s the Cobb W555 strip card that may be a year earlier, but this is the first regular issue baseball card of Ty Cobb -- not a strip card. E102s also have at least one player that did not start with his team until 1910 (Schaefer/Washington), making this probably a multi-year production set similar to the 1909-11 T206s. Despite these issues this is one of the earliest Caramel sets, and first full color 20th Century Caramel set - arriving in 1908. Caramel cards were generally collected by kids and Tobacco issues by adults, accounting for Caramel card condition rarity. Assembling a mid-grade Caramel set of E102s with all of the variations is a considerable achievement due to the hunt for far fewer possibilities and availability in much lesser condition than more widely available tobaccos. E102s are also intriguing. All have a simple theme and many are primitive, yet some can be quite eloquent such as Mathewson pitching with a wide panorama of sky and grass; Schaeffer pitching with deep multihued background of sky, trees and earth; or Donovan with orange background and a purple-toned venerate stadium of an age and many games long past. E102s remind the collector of the earliest, simple beginnings in the 20th Century of a color baseball card format that captures the earliest, pioneer-giants of baseball etched in American memory forever including Cobb, Wagner,Mathewson, Lajoie, Tinker; baseball’s first figures of National stature, all in such a small set.

E-105s! Greg loved them enough to have his handle previously named after this set~
The Chase
Gibson
and Matty I feel have been the toughest to find! Wagner fielding of course!


and has anyone ever seen the four color combinations of E-98 Mattys at the same time?
E-106 Lajoie is almost as hard to find as the Speaker* TBob is probably sorry he sold! : )

more later~