T206
Encyclopedia
Cigarette card
Cigarette cards are trade cards issued by tobacco manufacturers to stiffen cigarette packaging and advertise cigarette brands.-History:Beginning in 1875, cards depicting actresses, baseball players, Indian chiefs, and boxers were issued by the US-based Allen and Ginter tobacco company. These are...
set known as T206 was issued from 1909 to 1911 in cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
and loose tobacco packs through 16 different brands owned by the American Tobacco Company
American Tobacco Company
The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company...
. It is a landmark set in the history of baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...
collecting, due to its size, rarity, and the quality of its color lithographs.
History
The name T206 refers to the catalog designation assigned by Jefferson BurdickJefferson Burdick
Jefferson R. Burdick was a trading and baseball card collector and cataloguer. He cataloged trading and baseball cards in The American Card Catalog, otherwise known as the ACC, which is still used today by collectors and dealers. The famed T206 baseball card set received its popularized name...
in his book The American Card Catalog
The American Card Catalog
The American Card Catalog is a reference book for American trade cards produced before 1951, compiled by Jefferson Burdick.It has become the de facto method in identifying and organizing trade cards produced in the Americas pre-1951. The book catalogues sports and non-sports cards, but is best...
. It is also known informally as the "White Border" set due to the distinctive white borders surrounding the lithographs on each card.
The T206 set consists of 523 cards. Over 100 of the cards picture minor league
Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...
players. There are also multiple cards for the same player in different poses, different uniforms, or even with different teams after being traded (since the set was issued over a period of three years). The cards measure 1-7/16" x 2-5/8" which is considered by many collectors to be the standard tobacco card size.
The T206 set is the most popular and widely collected set of the tobacco/pre-war era. The historical significance of the set as well as the large number of variations give it enormous appeal to collectors. In addition, the set features many Baseball Hall of Fame members including Ty Cobb
Ty Cobb
Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb , nicknamed "The Georgia Peach," was an American Major League Baseball outfielder. He was born in Narrows, Georgia...
(who is pictured on 4 different cards), Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson
Walter Perry Johnson , nicknamed "Barney" and "The Big Train", was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Washington Senators...
, Cy Young
Cy Young
Denton True "Cy" Young was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. During his 22-year baseball career , he pitched for five different teams. Young was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937...
, and Christy Mathewson
Christy Mathewson
Christopher "Christy" Mathewson , nicknamed "Big Six", "The Christian Gentleman", or "Matty", was an American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire career in what is known as the dead-ball era...
. The value of the cards has led to a great deal of counterfeit
Counterfeit
To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...
ing over the years.
The Honus Wagner card
A high-quality example of the famous T206 Honus WagnerT206 Honus Wagner
The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company from 1909 to 1911 as part of its T206 series...
card was sold at auction on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
in 2000 for US$1.265 million. In February 2007, the same card was sold for a record US$2.35 million.
In September 2007, the Wagner card changed hands again when SCP Auctions of Mission Viejo, California, which had bought minority ownership, brokered a new sale—this time for US$2.8 million, to a private collector. On August 1, 2008, noted memorabilia dealer, John Rogers, of North Little Rock, Arkansas, paid US$1.6 million for a PSA 5 Wagner. Rogers stated he "was prepared to go much higher and is pleased with his investment." He added, "the citizens of Arkansas deserve to see this treasure and I intend to make the card available to the public."
On November 2010, a group of nuns from Baltimore sold a Honus Wagner card for $262,000 in auction to Doug Walton, a sporting card store owner.
The T206 Wagner is the most valuable and the most famous baseball card in existence, and even damaged examples are valued at $100,000 or more. This is in part because of Wagner's place among baseball's immortals, as he was an original Hall of Fame
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests serving as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, the display of...
inductee. More importantly, it is one of the scarcest cards from the most prominent of all vintage card sets.
It is estimated between 50 and 200 Wagner cards were ever distributed to the public, and fewer still have survived to the present day. Several theories exist as to why the card is so rare. One theory is that the printing plate
Offset printing
Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface...
used to create Wagner's card broke early on in the production process, but Wagner was a major star at the time and new plates would have almost certainly have been created. Another theory is that there was a copyright dispute between the American Tobacco Company and the artist who created the Wagner lithograph.
The most commonly accepted theory is that the card was pulled from production because Wagner himself objected to the production of the card, but his motivation is unclear. Reports at the time indicated Wagner did not wish to associate himself with cigarettes, possibly because he did not want to encourage children to smoke. However, some collectors and historians have pointed out Wagner, a user of chewing tobacco
Chewing tobacco
Chewing tobacco Chewing tobacco Chewing tobacco (also known colloquially as hoobastank, backy, tobac, doogooos,Hogleg, chewpoos, chits, chewsky, chawsky, dip, flab, chowers, guy, or a wad, as well as referred to as dipsky, snuff, a pinch, a yopper, a Packing a bomb, a tobbackey or packing a...
, allowed his image to appear on cigar box
Cigar box
Cigar boxes are popular juggling props. Their rectangular shape resembles that of its namesake; they are sometimes padded on the ends and/or the sides with a felt-like material....
es and other tobacco-related products prior to 1909 and objected to the card simply because he wanted more financial compensation for the use of his image.
Brands that produced T206 cards
T-206 cards were issued with 16 different backs, representing the 16 different brands of cigarettes/tobacco with which the cards were issued. Due to the same card having different backs, there are actually far more than 523 "different" T206 cards. The actual number of front/back combination is not fully known as collectors still discover new combinations from time to time. The 16 backs are:- American Beauty - more thinly cut than other brands due to the narrower size of the cigarette packs
- Broadleaf
- Carolina Brights
- Cycle
- Drum
- El Principe De Gales
- Hindu - Found in both brown ink and red ink (rare)
- Lenox - Found in both brown ink and black ink
- Old Mill
- Piedmont
- Polar Bear - Only brand that is not cigarettes; Polar Bear was loose tobacco, also known as scrap tobacco
- Sovereign
- Sweet Caporal
- Tolstoi
- Ty Cobb
- Uzit