t206 older reprints

[Brian-Chidester]

Hi Steve,

Were you asking about T206 reprints in an effort to determine authenticity? Or were you just interested in who was manufacturing these according to a timeline?

If the latter, I have a good idea about many of the reprint issues, though I don't purport to be an expert on reprints. I've been collecting T206 cards since 1985, and at that time, I was 8 years old. My dad and I would go to card shows, and in the early years, we accumulated mostly beaters and reprints. I've seen all sorts of the latter.

In 1964, "The Sport Hobbyist" magazine put out a reproduction of the T206 Wagner card. I say "reproduction," because it wasn't an out-and-out reprint, per se. It featured the image of the T206 Wagner on thin paper, with the image being printed in B&W. The back was blank. I understand that "The Sport Hobbyist" printed this version up through 1967, giving it away to their subscribers. Apparently, they pressed it again in 1971, along with several others from T206 (the first 35 cards in the set, I believe).

The first real T206 reprints, where the actual fronts and backs were attempted to look like the originals, was the 1975 perforated cards released by Nostalgia Press. I had the Johnny Evers from this set forever, and much later found a whole uncut sheet (i.e. the cards were just not removed from their perforated neighbors on the sheet... big whoop). I don't know if these were released in some book as an insert, but Nostalgia Press was run by Woody Gelman, who create Bazooka Joe and Mars Attacks for Topps, and who was a credited editor in Jefferson Burdick's 1960 edition of the American Card Catalog.

Next up came the 1977 Dover reprints, of which the T206 Wagner and Plank were included in a book of perforated reprints from the history of baseball cards. Other reprints in the book included the 1933 Goudy Lajoie, a bunch of Allen & Ginter reprints from the 1888 set and some Ruths and DiMaggios and whatnot. The reproductions of the T206s were okay. They were slightly oversized when detached from their perforation. The backs were Sweet Caporal, Piedmont and maybe a few other backs, all with B&W print.

As far as I know, Renata Galasso released the next set of T206 reprints, both perforated and as a boxed set package called "The Monster," based on the moniker applied to the set by Bill Heitman in his book of the same name. I'm not sure if her perforated T206 reprints constituted a full set, but the Galasso T206 reprints that came in the box were not perforated. Reproduction was pretty decent, image-wise.

In 1983, a company called Capital released a full set of T206 reprints, which is awful. The images are blurry and/or blown out. The text along the bottom is either stretched vertically or horizontally. The whole thing looks bad. They did a few variations of this set with the backs featuring B&W text and ones with color text.

Then the Hygrade toy company released a starter kit for young card collectors. Sadly, I won't lie... I bought one back in 1987. It features reprints of the hobby's then-rarest known cards, which meant the T206 Wagner, Plank and "Magie' error, amongst others. The fronts of these were actually decent reproductions, image-wise. The backs just featured a mini-bio of why the card was rare, making no effort to reproduce a real T206 back.

In 1988, a company called C.C.C. released a full T206 reprint set, and this had both beautiful clarity on the fronts and back. A very well done set, IMHO.

In 1995, the Honus Wagner Estate released a reprint of just the Wagner card with a Piedmont back. The paper stock was nice and thick... the image on the front was well reproduced. My only gripe is the change of font for Wagner's name and team designation.

In 2000, Topps-Mastronet Fanfest released just the Honus Wagner card. Like the Wagner Estate release, Topps printed no other players in the T206 set... just Wagner. The reprint was supposedly based off of a reproduction of the Gretzky PSA 8 Wagner card, but it's not a good reproduction. Way too blurry. Also, the back simply has a history of the Gretzky Wagner, and how much it had sold for since changing hands four or five times, starting back in 1985. These were free everywhere for a while. People gave them away at card shows long after the Topps-Mastronet Fanfest.

Topps got in the game again in 2002 with their Topps 206 set. Not a reprint set in the strictest sense, because they didn't reprint every card in the original T206 set, just the rarest of the rare of the T206s, including the Wagner, Plank, "Magie" error, Doyle Nat'l, Demmitt NY and O'Hara NY, among others. This release also featured the current MLB players in a T206 setup, both mini and regular size. There were also actual T206 cards from 1909 placed inside Topps plastic holders, labeled as "buybacks." As to the Wagner, it got really weird, as Topps 206 featured the card with a red, blue and mustard background, in both a regular-sized card and a mini (six total). The mini was the size of the old 1909 cards. Confused yet? If you bought packs back then, you'd know exactly what I mean. For me, a totally disappointing set. The buybacks were mostly of the PSA 3 or below grade, and the reproductions of the Wagner, Plank, Magie and Doyle cards looked like crap. The images were so blurry. I mean, if anyone was going to have the scratch to produce the best T206 reprint possible, it should have been Topps. They also slapped a "206" logo within the front paint area of each portrait. Yuk.

In 2009, Topps had another 206 set, which is again not so hot. They also had an eTopps 206 set, with ten players (nine of which did not play in 1909-11). The Wagner from this set has the mustard background replaced with some rainbow green. If you are still reading up to this point, I implore you, ignore everything Topps has put out with regards to T206 reprints. They are the worst mutations.

Lastly, I believe Larry Fritsch put out a T206 set, which I've never bought. I see his HOF'er 15 card offer on his website, and actually, his Wagner looks to be the best reproduction, image-wise, yet. I know Mr. Fritsch is no longer with us, but his website continues to sell this product. Maybe someone else can tell you if this was something Fritsch had printed himself? Or if these cards being offered were just 15 HOF'ers pulled from one of the above reprint issues?

I have exhausted my knowledge of reprints, and hope that helped answer you initial question.

Brian