The Rebirth of the T207- Brown Background Set – 100 years later

                             
A couple years ago, when I was co-writing my first e-book, Before there was Bubble Gum: Our favorite pre-World War I baseball cards, I became fascinated by the unique look of the T207 set. The T207 set, commonly known as the brown background set, was originally manufactured by the tobacco industry giant, the American Tobacco Company, in 1912. The T207 baseball cards measure 1½” by 2-5/8”. Shortly after this set was printed, the American Tobacco Company would be dissolved due to the Sherman anti-trust legislation that broke the monopoly on tobacco.

 The T207 baseball card set is a true hobby classic. The 200-card T207 set contains 13 players that are in Baseball’s Hall-of-Fame, including Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Frank Chance, John McGraw, Smokey Joe Wood and Joe Tinker. Two interesting T207 cards are Eddie Cicotte and Buck Weaver, who were members of the 1919 White Sox and banned from the game for life.


 Being a big fan of reprint sets, as they give collectors who may not have the time or money to collect the original set the opportunity to enjoy the cards; I was always disappointed that the T207 cards are the most famous of the pre-war sets that has never been offered in the form of a reprint set. This is something special about being able to hold the cards in your as you go the set and look at the players. I must not be alone in my opinion, as DeansCards.com sells quite a few reprint singles and complete sets every year. For that reason, I decided we should recreate and issue a T207 reprint set. To do so, we created a new company called Dean’s Reprints and began securing the needed images.

The T207 reprint set turned out to be quite an undertaking, and took us two years to complete! The other thing that delayed the T207 reprint set was that I also attempted to finish my first book to be issued in print form. Both projects are now complete and available for purchase.

 Due to the quality of the century old cards, almost all of the T207 images needed to be retouched. Great care was given making sure that the reprint cards remained true to the original set. The original T207 set includes eight possible backs containing the name of tobacco brands in which the original cards were enclosed. We included a variety of these backs in the reprint set including three cards containing the ultra-scarce “Red Cross” backs. We were careful to use those backs on cards, whose originals have been discovered with a Red Cross back.

 One of the most interesting features of the T207 baseball card set are the player biographies on the back of the cards. Each of these bios needed to be retyped. We were careful to stay true to the original fonts and leave the original century old misspelled words. The one “improvement” that I could not resist was suggested by my teenage son, Jonathan. Jonathan collects cards and commented what a pain it was to keep un-numbered sets organized. For that reason, we numbered each of the cards in the set. I did not feel too bad about adding this one improvement since we felt that we clearly needed to also indicate that every card was a “REPRINT” and not an original. I hope that the hobby purists will forgive us for these minor changes.

Take Care,
Dean Hanley


 TO PURCHASE A T-207 REPRINT SET PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Dean Hanley is an authority on vintage sports cards and has written numerous articles on the topic. Mr. Hanley is the founder DeansCards.com, and with well-over one million vintage cards in inventory, DeansCards.com is the largest seller of vintage cards on the web. Dean is author of the new book, “Bowman & Topps Baseball Card Sets of 1948-1955”, which is now available for sale at Amazon.com. Dean has also published “Before there was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards”, which is also available in eBook form at Amazon.com .Please visit www.DeansCards.com to purchase this T207 Set.


If you are looking to sell your cards we would be happy to hear from you. Please fill out our sell your collection form here and we will be in touch.

1917 Boston Store #87 Walter Johnson

We just received another collection that had a few Boston Store cards in it, including a PSA 4 VG-EX #87 Walter Johnson. This card is exceedingly rare, as it has a population of one. There are only two PSA-graded Walter Johnson cards from the Boston Store set that currently exist (the other grades a 6 EX-MT). The Boston Store cards are particularly hard to find because the cardstock was thin and many of the cards that have survived are in Poor or Fair condition. Click here if you would like to read our previous article about the 1917 H801-8 Boston Store baseball card set.

At the time this card was printed, Walter Johnson was in the middle of his 21-year-career with the Senators. By 1917, Johnson had already won an AL MVP award for his spectacular 1913 season, in which he had an ERA of 1.14 and threw 11 shut-outs.

T204 Ramly Baseball Cards

#47 Jerry Freeman PSA 6

***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.***

DeansCards.com has been lucky enough to see several collections that include T204 Ramly baseball cards.  Although they are some of the most intricately designed cards that were produced in the Pre-War era, these cards not exceedingly popular with collectors.  The gold ink tends to flake easily and, more importantly, some of the bigger stars were not included in this set.


The T204 cards were printed in 1909 by the Mentor Company, located in Boston, and then inserted into packs of Ramly Turkish cigarettes.  The photographs of the players were  taken in the studio of the famous baseball photographer Carl Horner.  The T204 cards were heavily influenced by the Boston baseball scene.  The two Boston teams, the Red Sox and the Doves, are the best represented in the set, while other teams were left out entirely.  The White Sox, Phillies, and Pirates were all left out of the T204 set.  There are 121 cards that measure 2” by 2½” total in this set and three different back variations.  The Ramly advertisement is the most common, but blank backs and T.T.T. cigarette ads also exist.  T.T.T. cigarettes were another brand of Turkish cigarette manufactured by the Mentor Company.


Interestingly enough, the Ramly cards do not include some of the biggest stars of the time.  Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, and Cy Young are all omitted from the set.  Some of the stars that were included are Walter Johnson and Eddie Plank.  It is not known why the Mentor Company left some of the most popular players out of the set.  
The T204 Ramly set also has a sub-set or variation set that consists of six cards with square, instead of oval, frames.  All of the square-frame cards have blank backs and all are very difficult to find.  They are at least ten times more expensive than the oval-framed Ramly cards.  The square-frame Ramly cards also have filled frames, instead of a white background behind the gold ink.  DeansCards.com has had one square-frame Ramly in stock - a John Anderson in Poor condition.
The T204 Ramly baseball cards are a unique set that can be difficult to collect.  If you are interested in selling T204 Ramly cards or any Pre-War baseball cards, please click here.  If you are interested in our current inventory of T204 Ramly cards, please click here.