c. 1910 Frank "Home Run" Baker Cigar box and Matching Card

There are some pieces that I find extremely intriguing, and this pair fits that description.

It is well known that several ball players endorsed cigars and cigarettes even into the 1980's.  Some players loaned their name and likeness to these products, especially when it came to cigars at the beginning of the 20th century.  

Stars like Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and Cy Young all had tobacco brands with their name and likeness attached to them.  

In this post I am focusing on a Frank "Home Run" Baker cigar product.  There appears to be more than one type of Frank Baker cigar box (as shown below) using the same image on the inside of the top, but with slightly different box labelling and design otherwise.

As you can see, the box on the left has FRANK BAKER on the front of the box and the one of the right says LONDRES GRANDE.  The box on the left also says Smoke FRANK BAKER Cigars inside the back of box.  Both, however, use the same image on the inside flip top when opened.  

What I really love about the Frank Baker cigars is this card that doesn't appear to be from any particular set, yet uses the same image as that used on the boxes.

The card has Baker's name and team in the caption at the bottom and measures approximately 1 1/2" x 2 1/2".  This particular card is currently for sale on eBay here at a $2,000 Buy It Now.  The seller claims it was once part of a pair of these cards, but that one of the two was lost or destroyed leaving just this one known now.  

Of course, there is no advertising or sponsor named on the card, so it is speculation that it is related to the cigars, but using the same image seems to indicate it is.  

As a side note, here is a cigar box I once owned from the sixties that was sponsored by Pedro Ramos.

So players were still lending their names and likenesses to cigar brands into at least the sixties.  I've never seen another Pedro Ramos box by the way.  Still bummed I sold it years ago.  

What are your thoughts about the Baker card being associated with the cigars?  

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.

1930's Western Strip Cards

 I know, I know, it's not baseball cards but I like them anyway.

There is a little known western strip card set from the thirties (I believe) that includes one very cool card.  The cards have a smooth surface, almost glossy, and are of a thicker stock than most other strip cards from the twenties. 

The specific card from the set that I really covet is the Jim Thorpe card pictured below.  It shows Thorpe in his traditional Indian head dress and is not a sports related card at all. But, this is a western movies set so why would it be?

This same image is also used on some Exhibit cards in different colors.  I wrote about Thorpe cards here where you can see the Exhibits as well as several other cards of his. The cards are about the same size as other strip cards.  They have a thin color strip at the bottom of the card that matches the background color and the actor's name on the front as well.

I recently picked up three cards from the set and am actively looking for more.  Someday I'll land the Thorpe.  Here are the three that I found so far.

If you have any of these, please let me know, especially if you're willing to let them go.  

I can't find much info about this set anywhere, so I don't know how many cards are in the set or a checklist of cards.  If you have any further info, please share it with me.  

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.

A Couple Recent Pick Ups

Recently picke up a couple new cards to share.

Not too long ago I wrote about the N165 Goodwin Games and Sports set from 1889 after I had picked up one of the four baseball subjects in the hset.  

Well, I was able to pick up another card from the set, the Hurdle Race card.  This one is a bit better condition that my baseball example.   Here is the new card.

I really like the design of these cards with the lady in front and the action scene behind her.  I listed the 50 cards in the set in my previous post here.  So I won't go into that detail again here.  

The other new pick up is a really nice E102 of Germany Scheafer.  This is a great horizontal pose card which I am really drawn to.  I've decided to collect horizontals again after many years of not focusing on them.  I had a modest collection of them a while ago and slowly sold most of them off over the years.  This one gets me back on track with that pursuit.  It's also my only E102 at this point.  So it's a nice typecard as well.

If you look closely enough you can see a printer's mark above Germany's head in the border as well.  This doesn't really add any value, but I think it's pretty cool.  Germany was known to be a bit of a jokester amongst his teammates during his playing days as well.  One well known shenanigan Scheafer took part in was when he stole second base attempting to get a throw from the catcher and allowing a double steal of home.  The catcher didn't throw the ball, so on the net pitch, Germany stole first base back again and tried it again on the next pitch.  History is a little unclear on whether it worked however.

I hope you liked my new pick ups and I hope to have some more for you soon.

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.

What's Going on With T206 Prices?

 T206 prices seem to be on the rise as of late.

Anyone else notice this happening?  All across the board, T206 prices have been going crazy in my opinion.  Not only higher graded examples either, but even low grade commons are seeing a spike.

I haven't been in the market for T206s in a while, but now that I'm looking at them again, they are quite a bit higher that what I remember buying them for.  It wasn't that long ago that I was buying lower grade commons for $10 - $15 a piece, whereas now they are selling for $30 - $40 each.  You can still find a nice poor example for $20 but that's even inflated.

PSA 3 commons selling for $100?  Lower tier HOFers selling for multiple hundreds?  I'm not just talking about graded Cobbs selling for $5K plus, but the run of the mill T206 instead.

I'm seeing this on Facebook everywhere.  Forget about what delusional eBay sellers are asking for their cards as BINs and ridiculous starting bids.  Those are just stupid.  

Here's an example of a card sold on eBay.  This is a common Anderson, Providence in rough shape that sold for $52.00 including shipping.  How?  What's so special about this card?  It's a common back too.

Another example below shows a poor condition common that has a back stamp that sold for $64 including shipping.  I understand that back stamps are becoming more popular, but the paperloss on the front of this card should have devalued it considerable regardless of the back stamp. 

As a side note, I have added this back stamp to The Great T206 Back Stamp Project (Shameless plug).

These are just two examples of T206s that, to me, seem to have sold for crazy prices.  But I guess this is where we are with these cards these days.  

Will they ever come back down to reasonable prices? I don't know folks.  But my gut says they aren't going to come down much if at all.  T206s don't tend to go down in value over time.  They are certainly in an upswing right now and I feel like I should've bought more a few years ago.  I just can't bring myself to pay these prices of today.  

Not to fret however.  There are still other issues that I like that haven't yet exploded in price so I can still play in the prewar sandbox.  But I'm a little disappointed that T206 seems to be too far gone for me at the moment.  

I used to pay around $100 for low grade SGC HOFers (lower tier of course) and those are now going for $200 - $250.  I just can't do it.  I'm thinking of selling mine but I really like them and just can't do it.  There are a few things I'd like to but that I would be able to pick up if I did sell my T206s, but I'm just not ready yet.

So what about you?  Do you see this increase in prices like I do?  Are you selling during this time?

Enjoy the hobby all...It's a great one.

The Great T206 Back Stamp Project - Updates

 I've recently completed several updates to The Great T206 Back Stamp Project website.

If you haven't checked out my project where I document T206 back stamps, then you really should, especially if you collect prewar cards.  You can click here to visit the website and see the project.  

Basically, I document all the T206 back stamps I can find as well as all the ones that other collectors submit to the project.  Have you ever seen a T206 with a stamp on the back of it?  You can check my site to see if I have it documented yet, and if I don't you can send me a clear image of the stamp and I'll update the site.  

I like to give credit to anyone who participates by listing their name on my contributors page.  As of today I have 55 collectors who have assisted with my endeavor.  There are hundreds of examples documented so far with 65 individual pages that contain like stamps on each page where there are multiple examples of the same stamp.

All unique stamps are posted on the Main Gallery page, then when I have more than one of a particular stamp, I create a new page for that stamp and begin adding more as I find them.  As of today, there are 186 different stamps on the Main Gallery page.  

Several of the stamps have little write ups on their individual pages that collectors have submitted after they have researched the name in the stamp on their cards.  Some collectors are working on collecting multiples of the same stamp as well.

Personally, I collect the Purple Number back stamps like those shown above.  Most of the ones on my site are mine, but not all of them.  Another collector, Ed McCollum, collects all cards of Howe McCormick.  Ed currently has over 380 of Howe's old cards in his collection.  I was lucky enough to interview Ed a while back and that is posted on the Howe McCormick page of the project.

This has been a labor of love for over a decade now.  I started the project because I was really interested in T206s with back stamps and was collecting them when I started the project.  I've since sold off most of my stamps (except for my purple number ones) but still love to document them.

The project has gotten a little press over the years as well.  Sports Collectors Daily ran an article about me and the project back in 2008 which you can find here.  Wow, a lot has happened to the site since then!  And our friends over at PreWarCards.com ran an article in 2019 that you can find here.

If you have seen my project before, then one of the updates I did was to add larger images at the top of each page so the featured stamp can be read/seen easier.  Then I have all the examples below it four to a row.  This helps on many of the stamps where the smaller images were hard to see.  I also added several new pages and new examples on the Main Gallery.  

Let me know what you think of the project and, please, if you have any stamps that I don't already have documented please email thegreatt206backstampproject@gmail.com to send me an image.

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.

The Babe and Sweet Lou Batting

 Boy, I wish I could've seen Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig batting........wait, WHAT!  I can see them batting?

Yup.  Here you go, a colorized video of the Babe and Sweet Lou taking batting practice and a little footage of them in action and together for the camera and fans.

I just had to share this when I saw it.  

It's so cool seeing Ruth's classic swing in motion and not a snapshot of the swing.  Same with Gehrig.  I love how Ruth starts with his feet close together and then give a nice stride when he's waiting for the pitch to arrive.  

These guys have several cards showing them in a batting pose and you can see those poses in the video.  Here are some of their cards showing them batting.

These two combined for 1,207 HRs, 4,209 RBIs, 4,062 Runs and 5,594 Hits.  Those are some impressive numbers folks.

Well, I hope you like the video.  

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.

Briesch-Williams and The American Caramel Company

 Two distributors of caramel cards at the beginning of the 20th Century were The Briesch-Williams Co. and the American Caramel Co.

Breisch-Williams put out what we now call the E107 set from 1903-04.  This was the first major caramel set of the time and is a historical set that contains many of the first cards of the players depicted on the cards.  These cards are quite rare and finding examples from the set can be a challenge to even advanced collectors.

The American Caramel Co. put out several different sets circa 1910 including the very popular E90 set.  There are three types of E90s, but the type one set is one of the most collected of all caramel sets of the period.  

What do these two companies have in common?  It would appear the Briesch and Williams of the former company later became part of the latter company.  

I was very generously gifted this American Caramel Co. stock certificate a while back by a good friend of mine and I noticed something interesting one day while looking at it more closely.

The person receiving these shares is one Frederick G. W. Briesch and the secretary of the American Caramel Co. at the time of issuance was George W. Williams.  

Click to Enlarge

Frederick is named as the Briesch part of the company in the snippet below so we know that he is, in fact, the correct person of the Breisch-Willaims company.  I haven't been able to find definitive record that George W. Williams is the person for the Williams part however.  

Interestingly, also noted in the snippet above is mention of the Williams Caramel Co. which distributed the E103 set and the Oxford Confectionary Co. which distributed the E253 set.

It's not surprising that all of these companies are somehow related to one another as companies were bought out by one another to form larger companies of the day.  

Here are several examples of E107 cards for those not familiar with them.  There are three different types of backs for this set as well.  Advertised on some backs is the fact that there should be 150 different cards to be found.  To date, only 148 different players have been confirmed, however when team changes are taken into account there are actually more than 150 different cards.

Image courtesy OldCardboard.com

As you can see there is no print on the backs that name The Breisch-Williams Co. as the issuer of the cards, however the very rare overprint back has a stamp identifying them.  

Even with the images being black and white, these are striking cards.  All in portrait format, they use real photos instead of lithographs like so many other caramel cards.  Many of the images are also used again in later issues like T206.  

E90-1 did use colorful lithographs in contrast as well as a mix of action shots and portraits.

There are 122 checklisted cards in this set including variations.  Several short prints keep this set fairly tough to complete however as well as the inclusion of the Joe Jackson card which is quite expensive.  

Many consider this set as being the best looking of all the caramel sets of the time as well.  Personally, I love this set for the colorful images, variety and the players included.  

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.