T206's in "The good ole days"

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Posted By: Tom Hufford

If the words "Perhaps a Reader Can Help" ring a bell, then you know who I am refering to. If not, then a short lesson - In the early days of SCD, there was a Q&A column written by Wirt Gammon, longtime Chattanooga sportswriter, who had begun collecting in the pre-1920's. Wirt was a whiz at the older cards, but not so much on the recent stuff. At least once a column, there would be a question on a newer card that Wirt couldn't answer, and his response would be "Perhaps a reader can help." Well, I digress.

I made Wirt's aquaintance in the late 1960's, while I was in college. I must have answered an ad that he ran, offering to sell T206s. He had collected them as a kid, and still had them. Remember those rectangular metal cans that Band-Aids used to come in? (maybe they still do). Wirt would mail me one of those cans with 50-10 different T206s in it - mostly in VG/EX shape, some better and some worse. I could look through them and take any or all that I wanted - for 35 cents each. Same price for HOFers, Southern Leaguers, or scarce ones. If there were duplicates, or ones I didn't want, I just sent them back to Wirt, and he sent the next batch. I must have gotten 475-500 different t206s from Wirt over the years, and must have sent the Cobb bat-off-shoulders back to him 10 times, hoping to finally get the bat-on-shoulders. Never did. I had to buy it in the late 1970's at an Atlanta card show for $35. Not a bad price, but it always struck me that I had to pay 100 times what I would have paid Wirt for it!

Wirt did have one T206 that he said he would have to charge me more for - Wagner, Pittsburg. He said it was rare, and he wanted $500 for it. I was in college, had a part time job for less than $100 a month, and it was all I could do to keep buying the commons at 35 cents each. So, I said no to the Wagner (I guess I thought I could get another one in a few years, when I finished school and got a real job). My friend, the late Bill Haber, ended up buying the Wagner from Wirt, and it was one of the centerpieces of Bill's teffific collection. I've always wondered where that card is now.

Buying T206s for 35 cents each was common in the late 1960s-early 1970s. I think the Card Collectors Co. sold them 3/$1. I know Wirt Gammon also sold them to a lot of other collectors, besides me.

When I got all the T206s I could from him - for some reason, I never did ask him about T205s, T210s, etc.! But what a great guy he was!