A few weeks ago, we offered more than two dozen 1909-1911 Obak tobacco cards. This popular issue is sort of a west coast version of the T206 series. Featuring primarily Pacific Coast League players, the T212s are the same in design and size as their cousins in “The Monster”. This week, we've got a few more but these aren't just any Obaks. We have four cards: Weed, Gaddy, Hartman and Brown and each one of them is simply the best in PSA’s Population Report. Incredibly, all are graded either PSA 7 or 7.5, near mint or better. For anyone collecting high grade Obak cards or investing in high grade tobacco cards of any kind, these are a must. For fans who want a truly outstanding example of this unique set or a representation of baseball cards from the early part of the last century, these are a must. While the players may not be well known to fans today—and most probably weren't to fans in the eastern half of the country even in 1910—the cards are appreciated for their stunning good looks. The artwork on these is sensational, transporting you back in time to a period when the game was beginning to grow up in California, Oregon and Washington, where these players toiled in hopes of getting noticed by a big league club in the east. It’s not a stretch to say the number of Obak cards in existence is far less compared to T206. While we expect strong bidding on these, they aren't nearly as popular with the hobby as a whole which offers the opportunity to acquire them at a reasonable price level (or so we think!). That may not last long. Collectors have begun to appreciate their scarcity and quality—along with their role as ambassadors for west coast professional baseball in its early days. Check them out—and the hundreds of other items we have up for bid this week.
