One hundred and one years ago, the American Tobacco Company produced one of the more unique early baseball card sets ever known. This one was interactive! Mecca Double Folders, labeled T201 in the American Card Catalog, a designation still in use today, featured color renderings of some of the top pro baseball players of the time. These were issued in the Mecca brand of cigarettes. The set is loaded with Hall of Famers , all done in a pleasing pastel type artist rendering. They’re a little slice of baseball in the early part of the 20 th century Turkish tobacco was a big deal during the era and that’s why you see some of the brand names associated with that region of the world amid the card sets produced during the time. The fold-over style allowed these oversized cards to fit into a pack but also kept kids (and probably some adults) busy playing a sort of ‘paper dolls’ game, which led to few high grade examples surviving almost from the start. The T201 cards aren’t numbered and most price guides/checklists list them alphabetically. There are statistics on the back, which was not common for the time period, another added bonus. This week, we’ve got six beautiful cards from this condition-sensitive set up for bid, all of which are graded PSA 5 or 6: Cobb/Crawford, Merkle/Wiltse, Wheat/Bergen, Bulter/Abstein, Payne/Walsh and Leach/Gibson. The Ty Cobb/Sam Crawford is graded PSA 6 and is attracting a lot of interest from collectors of pre-War baseball memorabilia. It represents a rare chance to pick up some iconic pieces at what we anticipate will be relatively reasonable price levels. The T201 set is enormously popular with collectors. It’s small enough that a complete set is within reach if one is patient. Many believe it’s the easiest ‘T’ card set to finish. However, many vintage collectors are content with simply owning one nice ‘type’ card. Mecca Double Folders are true relics and if you’ve never taken a good look at them, we’d encourage you to examine those we’re currently offering.
