Card Connections: The T-206 Series

When I decided to take on this blog, going through my baseball card collection was immediately jumping out as being one of my favorite posts on my weekly schedule. Any baseball fan gets a rush from baseball cards, and if they don't, they ain't a real fan! There's just something about ripping open a new pack or flipping through a binder that brings us back to the "Good Ol' Days". I still remember perfectly who was in my first pack of baseball cards. It was a Topps Series 1 pack that I opened on Easter morning in 2003. Cliff Lee rookie card, Jorge Posada, Vinny Castilla, Chipper Jones, Ruddy Lugo rookie card, Michael Young, Denny Hocking, Dave Roberts, Gary Matthews Jr., and Cole Hamels draft pick. Ahh, to this day, Topps 2003 is my favorite year to collect. And, since that was my first year as a baseball fan, I refuse to go the easy route and buy the complete set in one box, like I do with current sets. Nope, I will finish that set the hard way, card by card until I complete it.

Anyways, I digress. For my first Card Connections post, I thought about those 2003 cards, but I will save them for next week. This week, I decided to take a look at the two oldest cards in my collection, from the hallowed T-206 series.

First, A brief history of the T-206s. This particular label refers to cards produced between 1909 and 1911. As was the case with most cards of the day, these cards were distributed inside cigarette boxes and the backs of these cards, instead of having a bio and stats of the player, featured the name of a cigarette company (such as Piedmont, Old Mill or Sweet Corporal). There are 524 cards in the set in terms of images on the front. But, for every Ed Cicotte card, there may be many different backsides to the card, which results in somewhere over 6,000 possible cards in the set. 

Any history of the T-206 set is incomplete without mentioning the so-called "Big Four". These four cards are some of the rarest cards in existence, due to them being pulled for some reason or another. The Card of Sherry Magee, who was not a standout player by any means, is one of these rare cards due to the misspelling of his name (cards say "Magie", instead of Magee). Another is Joe Doyle. Many of Doyle's cards have the caption "Doyle, N.Y." on the front, but only a few have the full caption "Doyle, N.Y. Nat'l". Yet a third card, Hall of Fame pitcher Eddie Plank is an extreme rarity because only a few of them were ever printed. Rumors say that during production, a printing plate broke, causing companies to stop producing his card, but this has never been proven.

And of course, the crown jewel and deepest secret of the T-206 series is the Honus Wagner card. Not much is known about why there are fewer than 60 Honus Wagner cards in existence. Whether it is because he was averse to children using tobacco products and refused to market to them (as the legend goes) or if there was a financial dispute in regards to the use of his likeness on the card, the reason may never be known. But what we do know is the last Wagner card that was sold in 2013  went for a cool $2.1 million. Safe to say, that is one crown jewel that most of the card collecting world will be resigned to admire from a distance.

With that being said, I always grew up hoping to get my hands on just one T-206 card. To many collectors, owning even one card in the set gives you credibility in the collector universe. I always felt like owning my very own T-206 would make my collection go from "this kid has an awful lot of baseball cards, thats impressive" to "Ok, this is a serious collector". And so, in the fall of 2013, just weeks into my sophomore year at Appalachian State (Go 'Neers, as an old co-worker of mine used to say), I walked into an antique store one rainy Saturday. Now, I had been to this store before, and I knew you could occasionally find cards from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s and I'm always on the lookout for some lower-end cards from those eras to add to my collection. I certainly wasn't expecting to turn the corner and come face-to-face with a real, honest to goodness T-206 baseball card in a glass display case. I started ripping bills out of my wallet as I headed to the register. "Who is that player on the card?" my parents asked. "I don't know, but it's a T-206!" I responded. I don't think they quite grasped the seriousness of this purchase for me at the time. So who was the player on my newest and oldest baseball card?

Ed Konetchy, a 15-year big league veteran who played first base for multiple teams, that's who. He hit .248 in his first full season in 1908, but in his second full year, he hit .286 and drove in 80 runs. Twice he led the majors in games played, led the league in doubles once, and 4 times hit over .300 (not to mention his final season where he hit .299 in 127 games at age 35). He also had 10+ triples 10 times, and also reached 10+ steals in 12 of his 15 seasons (achieving a career-high 27 steals on 3 separate occasions). The more research I did on him, the more I realized, I actually had gotten the card of a pretty darn good player. This wasn't a lesser player that I got at a reasonable price (reasonable for a card that old anyways...I wouldn't call anything that's price was almost the same number as it's age "cheap"), this was a real solid, everyday player who probably would have made a few All-Star games if they had existed back then.

               (Small Traditions)

My second, and most recent T-206 addition came this past May. I was in yet another antique store, this time in Winston-Salem, when I came across not one card in a glass case, but SIX of them. I immediately recognized two players, but not knowing the other four, I went to my trusty source for baseball stats (baseball-reference) with the intention of getting the card of the best player. Turns out, the best player was the first one i recognized. Bill Dineen was wrapping up his 12 year career in 1909, at the time this card was being made. He compiled a 170-177 career record, but ended with a 3.01 ERA and was a 20-game winner four times. He pitched for the Boston Pilgrims in the very first World Series in 1903, and won a career high 23 games the following year.

(Small Traditions)

T-206 cards have become somewhat of a mini-obsession of mine. Not as much as the 2003 Topps set, which has much more sentimental value. But these cardboard pieces of history are so appealing and the history behind the greatest card set of all time is more than enough to catch the attention of baseball historians and card hunters like myself. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to ebay to look for another T-206!

What's your oldest baseball card? Be sure to comment below!