Recent Collection Purchased From 1909-1913: M101-2 Sporting News Supplements

1909-13 M101-2 Sporting News Baseball Supplements

At Dean's Cards, we buy hundreds of vintage baseball card collections through the mail each and every year. These collections range from cards acquired during childhood (that have most likely been sitting in a closet or attic for years), to collectors selling their baseball card sets and cards that have taken years to acquire through shows, card shops, or a website like DeansCards.com. This is another story of a recent collection we were able to purchase.

M101-2 Sporting News Ty Cobb

Typically, as we have stated before, collections mailed to us (and we get a lot! Hundreds a year.), are usually in the form of those little cardboard rectangles that Goudey, Topps, Fleer, Bowman and other gum companies made so popular. When you get into the late 1940's, to the beginning of Topps in the early 50's, and to the present; baseball cards (mostly around the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" variety) are the standard.

That's not the case for the collection we are featuring in this post. They're not really cards, although they feature baseball players. These poster-sized supplements are more like something that you'd hang on your wall rather than put in your bike spokes.


So what are these things anyways?

The 1909 M101-2 Supplements were issued with the Sporting News
sporadically throughout 1909-1913.

The 1909-13 M101-2 Sporting News Baseball Supplements set includes 100 poster-sized supplements measuring 7 1/2" x 10".  The front of the Sporting News supplements include a sepia photo of the players with date and player name.  Backs of the M101-2 supplements are blank.

The supplements were issued with Sporting News sporadically throughout 1909 to 1913. I say sporadic, because they weren't included with every Sporting News magazine, and there are large gaps in time where there was no supplement included at all.

The most interesting thing about this set might be the photography used to depict the baseball players. You rarely will see better photos taken during this time period of guys like Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, or Walter Johnson.

What makes it even better is that there are several supplements which have multiple players featured on the front. These player combinations range from players talking to shaking hands. The most valuable of these multi-player photos has to be the March 17, 1910 Ty Cobb / Honus Wagner.

The recent M101-2 Sporting News Supplements Find

This Sporting News Supplements set is loaded with photos of Hall-of-Famers.

Recently we had a rather large collection of these supplements sent to us through the mail that we were able to purchase. Most of these posters were in low to mid-grade condition, but they all had great eye appeal. These things are just plain neat, and the photography is beautiful. If you want something that captures a moment in baseball history to place around the man cave, these are close to perfect.

Included in the collection were supplements depicting Hall-of-Famers like: Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Eddie Plank, Walter Johnson and a famous non-HOFer - Shoeless Joe Jackson.

So head over to DeansCards.com and check these unique items out!

By Dean Hanley


 Dean Hanley, founder and owner of DeansCards.com, is considered one of the foremost experts on the subject of vintage baseball cards, other sports and non-sports cards and has a regular column in the Sports Collectors Digest and publishes articles on his blog.

Dean has also written two books on vintage sports cards: The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955 and Before There Was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards. Both are available in eBook and paperback form.

1909 E92 Dockman & Sons Baseball Cards

#15 Larry Doyle with bat

# 16 Larry Doyle throwing

***The information in this article was used to write our ebook, Before There Was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Card Sets.  To purchase the ebook, please click here.***



Dean's Cards recently received a collection of 45 E92 Dockman & Sons cards.  These cards are listed online and for sale at DeansCards.com These cards are particularly interesting because they represent such a small portion of the E92 set, but they are the easiest of the four sets to collect.

The E92 set is unusual because it was produced by four different companies: The Nadja Caramel Company, The Croft’s Cocoa Company, The Croft’s Candy Company, and the Dockman & Sons Company.  Although all of the card fronts are identical, the backs feature one of the four companies’ logos.  Some collectors consider these to be four different sets.  The artwork on these cards will look similar to other caramel card sets, as is common with this genre of cards.  The poses are the same as those found on the E101, E102, and E106 sets.

# 38 Honus Wagner throwing

The Nadja set is the largest, featuring 62 cards total.  The two Croft’s sets have 50 each and the Dockman & Sons set has only 40.  All of the four sets are organized alphabetically by player last name.  The Nadja Company was located in St. Louis, but featured players from all of the major league teams.  This may be because the Browns and the Cardinals were struggling so mightily.  In 1909, both the Browns and Cardinals finished dead last, so the people of St. Louis were probably not terribly interested in their home town teams.  Croft’s Was located in Philadelphia, so those two sets are heavy on Athletics and Phillies players.  That left Dockman’s, which was located in Baltimore, to publish a set that has very few players from St. Louis or Philadelphia.  
   

The Dockman & Sons cards have a variety to the cards that is somewhat refreshing.  There are action and portrait shots on solid or natural backgrounds.  The Dockman’s set does not, however, have the great number of variation cards that the other three manufacturers have in this set.  The only variations belong to Honus Wagner and Larry Doyle, who are featured both throwing and batting.  We currently have 24 of the 40 possible cards available online.

Honus Wagner W600 Cabinet Baseball Card

***The information in this article was used to write our ebook, Before There Was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Card Sets.  To purchase the ebook, please click here.***




Dean's Cards has just acquired a very rare Honus Wagner W600 Card.  This card is currently for sale at DeansCards.com.

W600 Honus Wagner in uniform

The W600 Sporting Life Cabinets set is one of the largest early baseball card sets ever built and includes one very important piece of American baseball memorabilia.  The W600 set consists of an unknown number of 5” by 7 1/2” cabinet cards organized alphabetically by player last name.  There is no definitive answer as to exactly how many cards are in this set, but estimates range from 450 to 650.  These cards were printed over a 9 year period from 1902 to 1911 by the Sporting Life Publishing Company located in Philadelphia.  The Sporting Life Publishing Company printed The Sporting Life Newspaper, which ran from 1883 to 1917 and then again from 1922 to 1924.  The W600 cabinets could be redeemed directly from The Sporting Life Publishing Company for three two-cent stamps and a Sporting Life coupon or could be bought for $0.10 each.  The photos for these cards were taken by baseball photographer Carl Horner.  The frame around each photo could have one of four different Sporting Life logos: a flower and leaf design, crossed bats and balls with the phrase “compliments of”, the crossed bats and ball logo without the “compliments of” phrase, or a light embossed Sporting Life advertisement.  



In the W600 set, Honus Wagner had two cards.  One card, released in 1902, shows Wagner in his street clothes. The other card from 1905 shows Wagner in his Pirates uniform.  Although the street clothes card has fewer existing examples, the 1905 uniform card is in higher demand.  At the time that W600 set was being printed, Honus Wagner was one of the most successful and popular players in baseball.  Despite the fact that Wagner’s entire career was played in the “dead ball era”, he was known for his impressive hitting prowess.  Unbelievably, he was the National League batting champion eight times in eleven years between 1900 and 1911 and finished his career with a lifetime batting average of 0.327.  The Pirates team in the early part of the century also found success behind their star shortstop.  They won the NL pennant in 1903 and then beat the Tigers in 1909 to win the World Series.  Wagner retired in 1917 and was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1936 as one of its first five members.



Wagner’s W600 cabinet is one of the rarest cards ever to be sold on DeansCards.com and we hope that you enjoy our take on this unique card.