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(26) Rare HINDU back 1909-1911 T206 tobacco cards have been discovered and proudly purchased by Just Collect! Included in this collection are baseball legends such as Ty Cobb and Cy Young. You'll never believe where these rare cards were discovered!  

The 1909-1911 T206 set is perhaps the most famous baseball card set ever produced. This set is home to the most valuable card in the world, and THE card that every collector dreams of owning: the T206 Honus Wagner. In the same set you can find cards of players that have etched their names into baseball greatness like Ty Cobb and Cy Young. In total, there are 38 players in the Baseball Hall of Fame that are represented in the T206 set. Over a Century ago, these cards were distributed in packs of tobacco! As a kid, you opened up baseball wax packs that had a stick of gum and a handful of cards, but your grandpa found his baseball cards inside of a pack of cigarettes or a pouch of raw tobacco - imagine how that would go over in today's world. Have you ever seen the BACK of a T206 tobacco card? There are different backs on the cards, and some of these backs are SUPER RARE. 

Tobacco companies used the back of each card to advertise their brand and placed one card inside of their products. In total, there are 16 different backs, one for each tobacco company. Cards with certain brands of tobacco being advertised on the backs of cards can be very tough to find. Some brands were from larger, more prevalent brands while other brands were smaller or regional. Using soda as a comparison, you can find a bottle of Pepsi or Coke fairly easily, but you would need to travel to Upstate New York to find Adirondack soda. Place yourself back in 1909 now, when there were only a handful of cards and no paved roads. Those smaller tobacco companies with a baseball card inside their products weren't easy to get your hands on. Given some of the cards were INSIDE raw pouches of tobacco, few cards have survived just making it out of the pouches and then have gone through over 100 years of handling by different generations.    

Here is a list of T206 backs in order of scarcity, with the most common backs listed first:

• Piedmont
• Sweet Caporal
• Old Mill
• Polar Bear
• Sovereign
• American Beauty
• Cycle
• El Principe De Gales
• Tolstoi
• Hindu
• Broad Leaf
• Carolina Brights
• Drum
• Uzit
• Ty Cobb (he had his own Ty Cobb tobacco) 

PSA, one of the top grading companies did a bit of research on how many T206 cards have survived over the last 100 + years and the percentage of the cards with a certain back. PSA states that 75% of T206 cards have either Piedmont or Sweet Caporal backs. How rare are the Hindu backs? Roughly just 1 percent of surviving T206 cards have a Hindu back! ONE PERCENT. 

When a collector reached out and told us here at Just Collect they had 1909-1911 T206 cards with Hindu backs, we couldn't wait to see. You won't believe where the cards were discovered either. 

THE 1909-1911 T206 HINDU BACK COLLECTION

In the first photo of our slide show below, you can see all FOUR Ty Cobb cards from the set. From left to right is the bat off shoulder, the bat on shoulder, red portrait, and green portrait cards of Ty Cobb. Next to Ty Cobb is probably the most valuable and important card in the collection - this is a Walter Johnson HINDU back card! 

Walter Jonson was part of the very first class of players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame back in 1936. A World Series champion (1924), Johnson twice won the MVP award (1913, 1924), and won the pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA in three different seasons (1913, 1918, and 1924). Walter Johnson hasn't pitched in 97 years and still owns the MLB record for most career shutouts with 110. When you flip this portrait card with the yellow background over, you see that brown-color Hindu text on the back. PSA keeps track of each card they graded and how many cards exist in each grade in their population report. Only 18 of these Walter Johnson Hindu cards have ever been seen by PSA! 

When you look at photo two, you can see what the Hindu backs look like - there are 17 different cards with the rare Hindu backs in this photo!

Ty Cobb shines in the third photo. When you have the highest batting average in baseball history (.366), you've earned your own picture in the slide show. Cobb won 12 bating titles in his career, and could hit for power when he wanted to; Cobb lead the league in home runs when these cards were released in 1909. The fourth photo shows the backs of each Ty Cobb - one Sweet Caporal and three Piedmont.

Cy Young steals the show in the fifth photo. The glove showing, portrait, and barehand versions of one of the best pitchers ever to stand on the mound. You may have heard of the Cy Young award that is given to the best pitcher in each league every season - this is that Cy Young. Young may have the most unbreakable record in baseball having won a whopping 511 games over his career. Second on the list is Walter Johnson (again, Johnson hasn't pitched in 97 years) with 417. The most career wins currently by an active pitcher is only 260 by Justin Verlander. For perspective, Verlander won a total of 13 games last season; he'd have to pitch until he's as old as these cards to catch Cy Young!

In the sixth photo is a plethora of baseball legends from the 1909 T206 set. The first card on the top left is Johnny Evers. We mentioned Adirondack soda before as an Upstate New York drink. Evers was born in Troy, NY. and passed away in Albany, NY (about 2.5 hours North of New York City). In this group are stars such as Eddie Collins, Jack Chesbro, Nap Lajoie, and John McGraw. Every player you see in in this photo is one of the greats! 

Remember putting your baseball cards in 9-pocket pages and a binder? We did that, too. The owner of this collection did just that! In the seventh photo is the binder and pages these cards were stored in. For a list of do's and don'ts when storing your cards, we put together a list of tips for you HERE. 

In total, there are 26 1909-1911 T206 cards with a Hinu back! 

While the main attraction of this collection are the Hindu back T206 cards, there are many, many more treasures included!  Two more Ty Cobb cards were included as we reviewed many 1911 T205 Gold Border cards. The 1911 T205 set was also distributed in packs of tobacco, nearly identical to the 1909-1911 set. You'll see the same brands advertised on the back such as Sweet Caporal, Piedmont, and Polar Bear. The T205 cards can be distinguished by the gold border around each front where as the T206 cards have the white border. In the eighth photo, you can see Leighton holding a T1911 T205 Ty Cobb card while reviewing the collection. There were TWO Cobbs from this set that you can learn about in the video below! 

As you slide to the ninth photo, you can see a batch of 1910 T210 Old Mill baseball cards. The set has 640 cards in total, split into 8 different series. Like the T206 cards, these T210s were inserted into tobacco products, but the Old Mill set features Minor League teams. These cards are from series 1 which has the South Atlantic League player cards. Check out the second card in the photo of Wahl from Jacksonville and the catcher's gear he's holding. Not sure we'd trust that thin protector and tiny facemask in his hand if we got behind the plate in a game today.

Each card you have seen so far is pretty old, but not as old as the bottom three cards in the tenth photo. These cards are from the 1887, 1888, and 1889 Old Judge N172 set. Yes, the year starts with an 18. The Goodwin Company produced these cards with each player posing for the picture. Unlike the 1909-11 T206 and 1910 T210 Old Mill cards, these Old Judge N172 cards have blank banks rather than the company advertisement. Recently, we purchase a collection of Old Judge cards in this 19th Century Collection.

It's hard to say cards from the 1953 Bowman Color or 1957 Topps baseball sets are "modern", however, we flash forward 50 years or so in the eleventh and twelfth photos. There were a number of vintage cards from the 1950's and 1960's in this collection, but we want to showcase a few that are near and dear to our hearts. The 1953 Bowman color cards were also stored in pages and binder. Cards of Duke Snider, Warren Spahn, and Monte Irvin catch your eyes as we name just a couple of stars spread out. The 1953 Bowman Color cards have no names, team logos, or company logo on the front; you only see a beautiful, full color image of the player that nearly reaches the borders. The firepower of players from the 1957 Topps cards is stellar! In the top row are card two cards of Ted Williams and one of Roberto Clemente. Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Mantle/Yogi Berra, Sandy Koufax, and a pair of Don Drysdale rookie cards follow! The 1957 Topps baseball set is special as it ushered in the area of the standard card size of 2.5" x 3.5".  Most card you see today is the same size as a 1957 Topps baseball card. The 1909 T206 cards are only 1 7/16" x 2 5/8" in size. 

Bazooka Bubble Gum time! You probably chewed a lot of Bazooka as a kind when you were playing Little League. If we weren't picking dandelions in the outfield, we were trying to blow the biggest bubble. Between 1957 and 1971, boxes of Bazooka gum had panels of baseball cards on the side. The cards could be cut out and collected, and you'd find the iconic players shown in the thirteenth photo. Two Mickey Mantle cards kick us off, followed by three Hank Aaron cards. Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, and Willie Mays occupy the bottom row. 

AUTOGRAPHS! Now that you're on photos 14-16, you see vintage baseball cards carrying autographs of the names you've been reading out. The owner fashioned up a homemade book, and tucked in cards from the 1960's that have been signed. In that thirteenth photo is a 1961 Topps Sandy Koufax, autographed by the three-time Cy Young award winner. How about the 1962 Topps Willie Mays autographed card in the next picture. Hank Aaron inked up a 1962 Topps card in the fifteenth photo. For many years, having players autograph cards were frowned upon in the hobby. Today, the practice is so common, you'll find many autographed cards placed right into packs. This collector was well ahead of his time by getting these vintage cards autographed. What a display, too! We love this homemade book.

Speaking of rare and homemade - scope out the shirt in our last two photos of the slide show below! The Hundi back collection is so awe-inspiring that we are making very special and limited edition Just Collect T-Shirts with a Hindu back! These shirts will only be available at the 2024 National Sports Card Convention in Cleveland, OH. If you're attending the National and would like a t-shirt, you can find all of the National information and the Just Collect both information HERE.

Here are the photos of this immaculate collection: 

DISCOVERY OF THE COLLECTION

The owner of the collection had a mother that thrived on collecting antiques. While searching in the Atlanta, Georgia area, mom found a box filled with cigarette cards back in 1969. This discovery of rare Hindu Brown back 1909-1911 T206 tobacco cards were found while looking for antiques! We have tips on unexpected places to find vintage sports cards, and checking flea markets or thrift stores is certainly on our list. 

With the collection being discovered in Atlanta, this might be why there were multiple Ty Cobb cards. Cobb was born in Narrows, GA., and was nicknamed The Georgia Peach. The distance between Narrows and Atlanta is only about 80 miles.

For the Bazooka Gum baseball cards, the owner bought the boxes of Bazooka, threw the gum in the garbage, and kept the box just for the baseball cards! Now that is collecting love.

This collection has been in the family for decades. From the moment mom brought the cards home after a day of antiquing to this very moment, each card is fresh to the hobby; only now are you able to see these treasures publicly for the first time in many years. The cards did travel a little bit, though! When the owner went off to college, he brought the collection with him as a reminder of home. Looking at the collection of cards while in college was "Like going to Cooperstown (home of the Baseball Hall of Fame) in a little box."

THE APPRAISAL AND PURCHASE

The owner of the collection reached out a few years ago through our , mentioning a portion of their 1909-1911 T206 tobacco cards. At the time, the owner opted not to sell the collection and held onto his cards. With our initial free appraisal, the owner never mentioned all of the cards in the collection and the rare backs on the 1909-1911 T206 cards, only that he had a few hundred of the tobacco cards. Recently, the owner reached back out to Just Collect and said he's getting a little older now (aren't we all!) and nobody in his family was interested in the cards, so he wants them to go to good home. After reading our Google Reviews and our great reputation, the owner wanted to work with Just Collect to purchase the cards. It was then we found out about the WHOLE collection! The hundreds of T206 cards, the 1910 T210 Old Mill, the autographs from superstars, the legendary names, and those unbelievable Hindu back cards. 

Our owner, Leighton, travelled to see the collection in-person. All of the cards were well organized which helped the process. In the video, you'll see Leighton take the owner behind-the-scenes of the appraisal and offer. We are open, honest, and transparent with you when purchasing collections; we are firm believers in Karma! On the first day, Leighton reviewed each and every card very carefully. Your local card shop is generally not well equipped to appraise or purchase vintage collections like this. The retail stores are focused on selling modern products and simply don't have the time or the knowledge to carefully evaluate vintage collections. This is where we are happy to help you. With decades of experience handling and purchasing collections, Leighton takes the time to treat your collection with the care it deserves. After reviewing and logging each card, Leighton went to his hotel where he worked the night away! At night, Leighton looked up the value of each card relative to the condition and noted the amount he would offer the owner. Condition is VERY important when appraising your sports cards. Using a grading scale of 1 to 10 like PSA uses, with 1 being in very poor condition and 10 being perfect, Gem Mint, condition, a change in just a single grade alters the value by thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card is valued around $30,000 when graded a 1. However, a Mantle rookie graded 2 is valued around $50,000 - a difference of $20,000 for a single grade. A tiny crease, an extra rounded corner - condition is everything. 

Leighton returned to the owner's home the following morning and revealed all of his research. After printing out pages containing the information on each card, Leighton showed the value of each card based on condition and the amount Just Collect was willing to pay for the card. For "raw" ungraded cards, we offer between 50 and 60 percent of the retail value. If the collection has star cards like Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, etc., the offer may increase. Our offer increases a bit for graded cards! You may not realize that there could be substantial cost to grading vintage and rare sports cards. Using PSA and their costs, they charge more per card based on the value of your card. While a card valued at $200 will only cost $14.99 to grade, a card with higher value much like that Mickey Mantle rookie card will be much more expensive to grade. A PSA 2 Mickey Mantle rookie card will cost $1,499 to grade at PSA. A Mickey Mantle rookie card with a grade of PSA 7 will cost $7,999 to grade and this is without shipping and insurance! When making our offer to the owner for the collection, Leighton shot for the bullseye. A collection having rare Hindu back T206 cards and top players such as Ty Cobb, Cy Young, and more, Leighton offered 70% of the retail value for the best cards in the collection. At Just Collect, we pay you the most we can for your collection every single time. Auction houses take a high percentage of your sale price and you run the risk of not meeting your asking price on a collection. Selling cards on eBay takes time, effort, trips to the Post Office, and eBay also takes a percentage of your sale. At Just Collect, we make the entire process as smooth as can be.

The owner happily agreed to sell his collection to Leighton, whom then paid the owner how he wanted to be paid. Leighton and the owner drove to the bank where he paid via cashiers check. You can see the bank transaction and the total amount right in the video below! When you choose to sell your collection to Just Collect, we can pay you in cash, company check, or wire transfer.

We thank the owner for letting us into their home, and we are proud to have purchased The Hindu Back Collection. If you have a vintage card collection that you're interested in selling, we'd love to hear from you. Leighton traveled to Arizona to purchase (a mind-boggling) 22 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig Goudey baseball cards that you can see here. A trip to Washington was made to purchase rare, complete basketball sets including rookie cards of George Mikan, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and more that you can read about here. You could choose to ship your collection to our store/office for an appraisal, and of course you're always welcome to come visit the Just Collect store here in Summit, NJ.

If you're wondering what the rarest card from the 1909-11 T206 that Just Collect has discovered and purchased, we had the privilege of purchasing a card even more rare than the Hundi cards you just read about! Leighton discovered a 1909-1911 T205 Eddie Plank card in The Fairy Godmother Collection!

To see the Hindu Back Collection and the entre process, here is a video for you to enjoy:

WE ARE ALWAYS BUYING

Just Collect is always buying vintage sports and non-sports cards from 1879 to 1979 as well as select modern cards. If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact us today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want appraised, please contact us and we would be happy to discuss your collection and help you understand the real cash value of your collection in the current marketplace. Check out the Just Collect Buy List.

We always offer a FREE APPRAISAL for your collection here at the Just Collect site. Just click here:

We offer may ways to evaluate your cards other than or using our website, too.

• Come to convention

We keep a LIST of card shows we'll be attending.  Come stop by the Just Collect table and chat.

• Meet in-person

If you have a valuable collection and want us to come to you, we'll hop on the next plane out.

• Meet in New York City

If you're near New York City and would like to meet in a public place, our owner, Leighton, would be happy to meet you; read all the information here.

• SHIP your collection 

If you choose to mail your cards for an appraisal, we will evaluate your cards for FREE still. If you choose not to sell the cards, we'll ship them back shipping fees paid by us!  We can offer our FedEx account with 2-day shipping, fully insured, all covered by us. Simply contact the office to set up this option.

OUR BUYING PHILOSOPHY

We've run into a wide range of people and collections over the last 25 years. Although Just Collect is known for buying vintage sports cards and especially vintage baseball cards, we are also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!  

Every collection and every collector is different and we treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. We understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, we understand the feelings that you're going through and will work with you to help you reach a decision that is a WIN/WIN, because if you're not happy, we're not happy.

CONTACT US ANY TIME

Whether you have vintage cards or modern wax you want to sell, you can reach out to us any time! 

• JustCollect.com
• (732) 828-2261
• info@justcollect.com
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• Post right here on the blog!