A Back Stamp Leads to a New Discovery for Me

 There are many many different stamps on the backs of T206s.

They range from images to dates to names or numbers.  I have an entire online project documenting these stamps.  I have known of one particular stamp for some time now, and have a few documented on my site, but I never knew anything about the person who stamped their name on the cards.

A recent post on Net54 mentioned this stamp and who the person was however.  Which led to a little more research and I was amazed at what I found out.

Here is the stamp I'm talking about. It reads:

L. KURZROK M.D.

9 E 96 ST. N.Y.C 28

As it turns out, Dr. Lawrence Kurzrok MD was a practicing physician in New York City for 41 years.  He retired to Longboat Key near Sarasota, FL in 1971 and passed away Feb 12, 1976. 

He was a specialist in obstetrics, gynecology and endocrinology and supervised the birth of over 10,000 babies.  

In the 1930's he ranked 10th nationally in tennis and won the Greater New York public courts title five times.  

He was a Navy Commander during WWII and received two battle stars.

All of this is amazing enough, but this is a vintage and prewar baseball card blog, so why am I going on about some doctor who stamped some cards?

Well, as it turns out, Dr. Kurzrok was a pioneer in card collecting and can be noted along with such names as Jefferson Burdick, Lionel Carter and Charles Bray.  He was the President of the Card Collectors Society of NY and often held meetings at his home located at the address stamped on his cards.

He would also meet in front of groups to discuss raising money for collecting clubs in high schools and colleges believing that collecting cards was a great way to learn about all sorts of things.  He one said:

 "The knowledge printed on these cards is so great you can't help but learn from them - You can learn anything from how to build a house or make a window frame to the names of the Kings of France."

The doctor had amassed a collection of over five million cards of all sorts of different subjects, but did state that his baseball cards were his favorite.  He had over 2,000 Old Judge cards at one point. 

After he passed away, Rob Lifson purchased the bulk of his collection and it has since been dispersed throughout the hobby.

Dr. Kurzrok was a pioneer I had never heard of before.  And I was fascinated to learn more about him.  He sounded like a really nice guy and someone I would've loved to have known.  

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

Starting a T205 Set

 I started thinking about what I want to collect these days and have landed on the T205 set.

This will be a long journey as there are many big names that I can't afford any time soon as well as several SPs and variations that cost a bit more than a common does.  

I've been working on the NY Giants subset for many years and have accumulated 15/22 (I'm not including the back variations that bring the true total of Giants to 24) of those so far.  In addition to those NY Giants cards, I also have eleven additional T205s bringing my grand total to 26 so far.  

There are 208 cards in a complete set.  However a master set is considered complete at 221 cards and even more when one considers the additional known errors.  I'll be focused on the 208 basic set for now.  After that maybe I'll expand to more cards.  

At 208 cards, it's not as large as the 524 card T206 set, but it poses quite a challenge of it's own.  There are 18 SPs in the set that are more difficult that regular cards.  Then there are a bunch of variations in the set as well.  

Some players, like in T206, have multiple cards in the set.  Hal Chase has three cards in the set and Eddie Collins and Roger Bresnahan have two cards each.  There are also twelve minor league cards in the set with HOFer Jimmy Collins being the key to those.  

There are three distinct styles of card in this set.  The National League cards have a portrait set against a colorful background and have a facsimile autograph at the bottom while the American League cards also have a portrait but it is set inside a diamond (either an infield or made up of bats) without a signature but rather a name plate or scroll at the bottom.  

Minor league player cards are some of the more beautiful cards in my opinion with several different variations in the design but all easily recognizable as a minor league card.  These have action shots as opposed to portraits.

American League                       National League                       Minor League

In many collector's opinion the T205 set is the nicest looking of all the early tobacco sets.  I chose the minor league subset as some of the five best looking sets of all time in a list I made back in 2020 here.

I'll keep ya'll updated on my progress on this set here on my blog.  I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do.

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