Item Description:
This listing is for a Professionally Graded NAP LAJOIE 1909-11 T206 Cycle 460 With Bat PSA 3 *RARE* CLEVELAND NAPS HOF. Cycle 460 is one of the pretty rare T206 advertising backs. According to the PSA database, this card has a PSA graded population of 1 with only 1 PSA examples graded higher as of July 2026. Please check the PSA database for the most up to date population report for this card.
A very nice specimen from the 1909-11 T206 White Border Tobacco card set, one of the most widely collected sets of all time.
For more vintage T206, please check out my other items:
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Shipping and Handling:
Shipments within the USA will be packaged securely in a box or flat rate padded envelope (packaged in small box inside the envelope) and mailed USPS Express Mail w/ Signature Confirmation. Shipments to Canada will be mailed FEDEX International Priority Service. Due to the high end nature of this listing, I will only ship to the US and Canada. I combine shipping at no extra charge for any additional items purchased. Thanks!
About Us:
Welcome to iconsportscards. I specialize in vintage sets and factory certified autograph and memorabilia cards from Hall of Fame greats. I pride myself on customer satisfaction, and providing a quality product at a reasonable price. Best offers are welcome on many of my items, and I'm always happy to help a customer work out a deal, so please do not hesitate to contact me if you see anything you like from my Ebay Store.
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About The Set:
The 1909-11 T206 White Border tobacco 523 card set is arguably the most sought after and collected baseball card set produced prior to 1950. The white border tobacco cards were produced by multiple tobacco brands, and used as a marketing scheme to sell cigarettes and tobacco products. Each individual tobacco company printed their name/insignia on the back of the card. The most common backs are from Piedmont and Sweet Caporal. Other backs were less common and command a higher value, depending on the rarity of the card/brands printed on the back.
Back scarcity rankings from T206resource . org
(from Wikipedia):
T206
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
Nap Lajoie
| Napoléon "Nap" Lajoie | |
|---|---|
| Second baseman | |
| Born: September 5, 1874 Woonsocket, Rhode Island | |
| Died: February 7, 1959 (aged 84) Daytona Beach, Florida | |
| Batted: Right | Threw: Right |
| MLB debut | |
| August 12, 1896 for the Philadelphia Phillies | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| August 26, 1916 for the Philadelphia Athletics | |
| Career statistics | |
| Batting average | .338 |
| Hits | 3,242 |
| Runs scored | 1,504 |
| Home Runs | 83 |
| Teams | |
|
As Player
As Manager | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
| 1901 American League Triple Crown | |
| Member of the National | |
| Baseball Hall of Fame | |
| Induction | 1937 |
| Vote | 83.58% (second ballot) |
Napoléon "Nap" Lajoie (English pronunciation: /'læ??we?/; September 5, 1874 – February 7, 1959), also known as Larry Lajoie, was an American Major League Baseball second baseman. He was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. In his career as a second baseman, he was considered one of the greatest players of the fledgling American League in the early 20th century, and the most serious of Ty Cobb's challengers.
Lajoie was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.
Playing career
Lajoie started his career in the National League with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1896. In 1901, in response to a league-wide salary cap of $2,400 per year, he jumped to the crosstown Philadelphia Athletics, owned by former Phillies' part-owner Benjamin Shibe and managed by Connie Mack. Lajoie's batting average that year was .426. The same year Lajoie became the second Major Leaguer to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded after Abner Dalrymple in 1881. Only four other players have done it since: Del Bissonette in 1928, Bill Nicholson in 1944, Barry Bonds in 1998, and Josh Hamilton in 2008.[1]
The next year the Phillies obtained an injunction barring Lajoie from playing baseball for any team other than the Phillies. However, a lawyer discovered the injunction was only enforceable in the state of Pennsylvania. Mack responded by trading Lajoie to the then-moribund Cleveland Bluebirds, whose owner, Charles Somers, had provided considerable financial assistance to the A's in the early years. Lajoie arrived in Cleveland on June 4, and proved to be the shot in the arm the Bluebirds needed, drawing 10,000 fans to League Park in his first game.[citation needed] He was named team captain a few weeks later, and at the end of the season the team changed its name to the "Naps" in his honor.
For the remainder of 1902 and most of 1903, Lajoie and teammate Elmer Flick traveled separately from the rest of the team, never setting foot in Pennsylvania so as to avoid a subpoena. The issue was finally resolved when the leagues made peace through the National Agreement in September 1903.[citation needed]
Lajoie won three batting titles and might have won a fourth if he had not contracted sepsis from an untreated spike injury in 1905.[citation needed] With Cobb's arrival in the Majors in 1905, however, Lajoie faced real competition.
Rivalry with Ty Cobb
The Lajoie-Cobb rivalry reached a peak in 1910, when the Chalmers Auto Company (a direct predecessor to modern-day Chrysler) promised a car to the batting leader (and MVP) that year. Cobb took the final two games of the 1910 season off, confident that his average was high enough to win the AL batting title unless Lajoie had a near-perfect final day.
Lajoie, a far more popular player than Cobb, was allowed by the opposing St. Louis Browns to go 8-for-8 in a season-ending doubleheader. After a "sun-hindered" fly ball went for a triple and another batted ball landed for a cleanly hit single, Lajoie had five subsequent "hits" – bunt singles dropped in front of third baseman Red Corriden, who was playing closer to shallow left field on orders of manager Jack O'Connor. Lajoie also laid down a sixth bunt that was muffed for an error—officially giving him a hitless at-bat and dropping his average. O'Connor and coach Harry Howell then offered a new wardrobe to the official scorer, a woman, if she changed it to a hit. She refused, and the resulting uproar resulted in O'Connor and Howell being kicked out of baseball for life.
As it turns out, Lajoie's average is not the only one tainted by controversy; Cobb's average might have been inflated by counting a game twice in his statistics when one day he went 2-for-3, as researchers discovered 70 years later. In the end, the Chalmers Auto Company avoided taking sides in the dispute by awarding cars to both Cobb and Lajoie for their thrilling batting race.
Legacy
Lajoie ended his career in 1915 and 1916 with a return to the Athletics, finishing with a lifetime .339 average. His career total of 3,242 hits was the second best in Major League history at the time, behind only Honus Wagner's total. Lajoie's 2,521 hits in the AL was the league record until Cobb surpassed it in 1918. Among second basemen, Lajoie posted staggering career offensive numbers; in the history of baseball, only Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins can compare.
Lajoie was among the second group of players elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, being inducted when the Hall opened in 1939. He died in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1959, at the age of 84.
In 1999, he ranked number 29 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Lajoie is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:
L is for Lajoie
Whom Clevelanders love,
Napoleon himself,
With glue in his glove.
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