The tobacco card set known as T206 was issued from 1909 to 1911 in cigarette and loose tobacco packs through 16 different brands owned by the American Tobacco Company. It is a landmark set in the history of baseball card 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 Burdick in his book The American Card Catalog. 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 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 (who is pictured on 4 different cards), Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and Christy Mathewson. The value of the cards has led to a great deal of counterfeiting over the years. The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories by Tom and Ellen Zappala and Peter Randall Publishers highlights the personal and professional lives of the players in the collection and discusses the values of the cards as well as the mystique behind the collection.

The Honus Wagner card

The T206 Wagner is the most valuable baseball card in existence, and even damaged examples are valued at $100,000 or more.^[1] This is in part because of Wagner's place among baseball's immortals, as he was an original Hall of Fame inductee. More importantly, it is one of the scarcest cards from the most prominent of all vintage card sets.

Rarity

It is estimated that between 50 and 200 Wagner cards were ever distributed to the public,^[2][3] 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 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 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.^[4]

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,^[5] possibly because he did not want to encourage children to smoke.^[1] However, some collectors and historians have pointed out that Wagner, a user of chewing tobacco, allowed his image to appear on cigar boxes and other tobacco-related products prior to 1909 and may have objected to the card simply because he wanted more financial compensation for the use of his image.^[1][6]

Brands that produced T206 cards

T206 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