T-210 Market

[Bill Stone]

Way to go Frank --I remember we both missed out on that Whitaker some time ago on eBay ---good luck on Angermeier fielding.

[oldjudge]

Good point Scott. Collect a set with beautiful cards like the E90-1 Jackson. LOL

[DixieBaseball]

Scott - Interesting perspective, as I once looked at these the same way as you did many years ago when all I collected were HOF players. A few things that strikes me interesting about these cards is their true scarcity. A collector can wait years for any number of players to surface and for me that adds to the allure as opposed to getting a common T206 HOFer or even Southern Leaguer. Besides the scarcity, the T210 set has in my humble opinion some of the most unique poses of any tobbacco set in the world. (All tobbaco sets have a handful of neat poses, but this set seems to have buckets of them...) Thirdly, this set seems to hold many stories behind the story if you know what I mean. (It takes a little digging, but a lot of these guys mixed it up in the Major Leagues... Especially the Southern League Series 8 guys)

As far as your comments about rarity, I think many would disagree, but that is up for debate on the "What is rare" thread. If you consider a few dozen or less examples rare, then I believe that there are plenty of cards in this set that may qualify.

Of course desirability is in the eye of the beholder, and to each his own. I think I have seen several advanced collectors get into this set once they bought their 9th Cobb, finished an E sub-set, etc... This set has a certain charm about it...

As for the no name minor leaguers, there are actually several minor leaguers who played in the Big's, and some that actually chose to play careers in the Minor's and there are a bunch that were very good ball players.

As for just a few rarities, sure the Stengel and Jackson get mentioned all the time, but players like Moxie Manuel, Ted Breitenstein, Bill Bernhard, Hub Perdue, Everett Hornsby, Gowdy, Cross, and Benton among many have their own stories. I think that adds to the fun of collecting this set - the history and the minor research one can do to find more out about these dudes.

Lastly, this set can be collected by the most advanced collector and the beginner. So many different ways to collect it. Collect a town, a series, or the whole set.

Finally, as a collector, I like the fact that not everyone wants to collect this set. It not being mainstream is probably one of the major reasons, why I do collect it.

Take care,

Jeremy

[Bill Stone]

Well put Jeremy. I started collecting this set years ago when I bought a framed magazine supplement that had pictured a number of baseball cards including many T206s and at the bottom row there was a picture of some Kentucky players. To discover who they were I was fortunate to find this site and some active collectors who were so helpful. I started with Frankfort and after completing that team ( yes Frank even Angermeier fielding although to call it a beater would be a supreme compliment) and have since been working on the other teams . The fun part for me is I can go to any of the towns and the local library will generally have an archive of newspapers and the stories just always seems to bring these players to life. When I read about a player being arrested for disorderly conduct at the bar down the street I can actually see the spot. So many great local stories surround these teams it never get boring to explore them. Many of these guys lived right in the town ,their wives took tickets at the local movie theater and you can visit their graves at the local cemetery -something about that makes it very personal to me. Finally looking at these cards gives me a smile when I see the cocky attitude some of them have--leaning on the bat , hat off center, always something. I remember reading how all the barber shops in Frankfort would close early on opening day so everyone could go to the ballpark.

[Bester]

The main draw for me is that the T210 set contains an entire subset from the Pre-WWI Texas League. Other than a few T206 SL cards, it is the only set to do so. I really enjoy the thought of collecting tobacco cards of players that played in or around the area where I was born and raised.

[FrankWakefield]

And when I read this....

"Finally looking at these cards gives me a smile when I see the cocky attitude some of them have--leaning on the bat"

I think of this:




Not until 1969, with Topps' 664 card base set, was there a greater offering of baseball cards since the 1910 Old Mill red border T210's.

Truthfully, the white border tobacco cards can be assembled if the collector has money. With plenty of money the cards can be acquired in lots and near sets. With eBay and the internet a set can be assembled fairly quickly, if money is no object, so long as the collector defines his stopping point, 518, 520, 523 or onward. These cards have a powerful, magnetic draw. The era, the players, the stories (of both the players and the cards), the colors... I can see why these are MUCH more popular than the red border Old Mills.

With the T210s, a fellow can focus on a single team and that in and of itself can be quite a challenge. A series can take a while. And all 640, that's been done; it has been done much less often than completing T206s.

I understand that they all look alike to some folks, and that many collectors don't recognize hardly any of the players. Those, and the other reasons mentioned, are why T210's weren't the first set that caught my collecting attention. So I think we T210 collectors understand where you and most collectors are on T210's, Scott; it's just that we T210 collectors caught the bug. It's similar to learning to like strip cards.

I've sold almost all of my T210's, other than the series 6 cards, so I could focus on those. I decided I'd never get close to 640. Being a Kentuckian is part of why I kept the series 6 cards. A couple of weeks ago I was in Lexington's library, looking at microfilm of old 1910 papers, and making photocopies. I'd like to set out the 1910 season of the Bluegrass League in a book. Tickets for the games were 50 cents. That seems high for 1910, but fans still turned out. Now Bill, which one was arrested for being disorderly when???

[rhettyeakley]

Well put Jeremy. For a lot of people (myself included) that have been collecting cards for a while (20+ years) it just gets hard to get excited about another T206 card, or even an E90-1 card for that matter. I tend to like cards with actual likenesses of the players depicted, something missing on a lot of the E90-1 cards (not all though as there are some great E90-1's). Also, as a history buff the most exciting thing for me as I pick up a card of a player I had never heard of before is to do some research on them. In my opinion, it's when you get past the well-documented Major Leaguers that this hobby gets the most interesting & fun.

If I wasn't already collecting Zeenuts I would be going after this series, and I'm sure someday I will, as this series has everything in it that I enjoy about collecting a card set.

-Rhett

[Bill Stone]

Frank --the T210 of Yaeger is exactly the one I was thinking of.

On December 25,1910 there was a so-called " Christmas Riot" in downtown Frankfort. According to local accounts and an article in the Washington Post December 28, 1910 Grover Land ( a Frankfort boy who played in the major league for Cleveland) and Pat Bohannon ( who is in the T210 set) were arrested in connection with what was thought to be a fatal shooting of Stephen Theophanis, a Greek who owned a restaurant in downtown Frankfort. The story goes that they had a prolonged and noisy Christmas celebration that lasted until 5 AM . At that time someone threw firecrackers into the place , there was a fracas and eventually the owner was shot. He lived but the men were indicted on misdemeanor charges and released on $200 bonds.

[Potomac Yank]

Scott brought out most of the T210 aficionados.

Now that we're here, who picked up what T210 in that auction?

I'll start it off with the new slot fillers to join the other 356:

Kuhlman - Lindsay - Seitz - Bronkie.

[Bill Stone]

I added Atwell and Reed of Winchester.