T218 series breakdown and ad backs

[DaveW]

Scott,
Thanks for joining in. Your data would be greatly appreciated. If you give me your email address, I'll send you my spreadsheet with all the T218 and C52 data I have and you can see what you've got that is not already there. I'm really interested in your C52 cards. Right now, it looks like all the C52s numbered between 1 and 50 come from the Mecca series 1 cards with the "Champion Athlete ..." backs and all of the C52s with numbers between 50 and 100 come from the Mecca cards with the "Series of Champion ..." backs.
- Dave

PM sent with my email address

[DaveW]

Thanks to all who have shared their data with me (especially Scott S) - this is what is so great about this site! I'm getting pretty close to understanding this set, but I need a little more help. If you have any of the following cards, could you please let me know (a scan would be great, but not absolutely needed)?

T218:
Johnny Hayes or Gusta Ljungstrom with "Series of Champion Athletes & Prize Fighters" on the back (not just "Series of Champion Athletes")

Any Hassan back of H.J. Handy

A Mecca or Hassan (no Series 2 designation) or C52 of Lunghi or James P Sullivan
A Hassan (no Series 2 designation) back of Joe Gans or Jack O'Brien

A Tolstoi back of Jack Johnson (side view, green)

Also any C52 card with a number above 50

I'll be happy to share all of my data with anybody that wants it, just PM me.
Thanks,
- Dave

[GasHouseGang]

I went through my set, and I didn't have any of the variations you were looking for. Drats!

[RBrown]

Dave,

Here's a few you asked about.

[DaveW]

Thanks for looking through your cards and for the scans. I'll add them to the known cards spreadsheet.
As a reward, here's an interesting thing I discovered about one of the cards in the T218 set. George Sutton was a famous billiards player of the day and was pictured playing pool on one card, but in real life he had no hands! He lost them both just below the elbows in a sawmill accident when he was 8 years old - but on the card he is pictured with hands.
- Dave

[scooter729]

Interesting about Sutton, Dave. I just searched and saw the same thing - here is a picture of the handless wonder. One possible thought - this is "George H. Sutton" of billiards fame - apparently there was a "George F. Sutton" who was known in the billiards world then - any chance the T218's feature the other George Sutton - you know, the one with hands?

[DaveW]

Scott - You may be correct. It's hard to believe that there were 2 George Suttons playing in the 1910 era, but it's even harder to believe that they missed the fact that the one was handless. The picture also looks more like George F Sutton. I still think that it's amazing that a guy with no hands could get to be a top flight billiards player. Good catch.

[DaveW]

OK - I think I've finally collected enough data to make some observations about the T218 cards. There are 153 cards in this set, so it would be nice if they split evenly into 3 groups of 51 cards. I think they do! Here's what I see so far:

Group 1 (51 cards) - These cards come with only a Mecca 1 and Hassan 1 back. All of the Mecca cards say "Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series" and none of the cards has the Series #2 designation.

Group 2 (51 cards) - These cards all have both Mecca Series 2 and Hassan Series 2 backs. The Mecca cards all say "Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series" as well. For some unknown reason, 21 of these cards also come with a Hassan 1 back (but no Mecca 1 back) and 6 other cards come with all 4 backs. All of the Tolstoi cards come from this group. I've found that there are 50 Tolstoi cards (the 49 listed in the original post plus Mike Sullivan). Only the green Jack Johnson card is missing (anybody out there got one?).

Group 3 (51 cards) - These cards all have a Mecca back (no series #2) but they all say "Series of Champion ..." instead of the "Champion Athlete ..." phrase that is on the Group 1 and Group 2 cards. The 11 track guys in this group have 2 different backs. The 4 aviators and 11 track guys have "Series of Champion Athletes" backs. The same 11 track guys and the 11 boxers in this group have "Series of Champion Athletes and Prize Fighters" backs.

So, if you really wanted a complete set with all the backs, you would need close to 300 cards.

I'm still looking for a handful of cards (see a previous post of mine), so if you have any of those please let me know. Thanks for all the help!
- Dave