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Hundreds of 1909-1911 T206 Cards With Ty Cobb and Cy Young Purchased

Fresh-to-the-Hobby Find of T206 Cards with Hall of Famers, Southern Leaguers, etc.

February 21, 2024

T206 Stack

At Just Collect, we are experts in handling T206 cards and have purchased many collections with rare and valuable cards like the cards you're about to see. Hundreds of T206 tobacco baseball cards from 1909-1911 have proudly been purchased by Just Collect after we received an e-mail stating a gentleman stating he liked our info! Multiple Hall of Famers are included in the collection including Ty Cobb and Cy Young, as well as coveted Southern Leaguers.

While reading our messages from info@JustCollect.com, we received a note from a gentleman stating he "has about 400 T206 cards, likes our info, and was interested in selling the collection." We LOVE telling you stories about cards and collections we've purchased over the last 25 years. Whether you're reading our blog, following us on Instagram, or you listen to the Trading Card Therapy podcast, we truly appreciate you taking a moment to connect with us and learn more about the treasures we find. This gentleman saw our information and decided it was time to sell his collection of cards, now becoming part of the stories he enjoys! We have over 30 years of experience handling these delicate, valuable T206 cards including Ty Cobb and those with rare backs like this father-son collection. We also discovered and purchased one of the rarest cards not just in the T206 set, but in the entire hobby. You can read about the ultra-scarce T206 Eddie Plank purchase along with hundreds of other T206 cards in The Fairy Godmother Find

THE T206 TOBACCO DENTIST COLLECTION

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This collection of 400 T206 baseball set cards contains several Hall of Fame players including Ty Cobb and Cy Young. Ty Cobb held the record for most hits for decades, tallying 4,189. To give you an idea of how many hits that is, Derek Jeter has 3,465 hits and he played for 20 years! Cy Young is still the all-time leader in wins for a pitcher, and has the award for pitcher of the year named after him. Each of these cards have been graded by PSA. Cards are graded on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being Gem Mint (a flawless card). Condition is VERY important in relation to the value of a card. Just one small change on the grading scale from a 1 to a 2 could increase the value by thousands of dollars! For example, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card graded PSA 1 is valued around $25,000, while a PSA 2 is valued around $50,000.When it comes to rare cards and Hall of Famers, don't let the "1" or the "2" grades fool you; these cards are still valuable! Remember, these cards were sitting packs of cigarettes; there aren't many high-grade examples. Perhaps you recall putting your cards into bike spokes - condition wasn't a thought 40 years ago let alone over 100 years ago!

In the first picture of the slide below, you can see three key cards: Ty Cobb (red portrait), Cy Young (green portrait in the middle), and a second Cy Young in the third spot as he's throwing a ball:

Picture two in the slide above has FIVE Hughie Jennings on the top row with the nice orange and yellow background. Jennings is in the Hall of Fame, is a two-time World Series champion, and left us almost 100 years ago when he passed away in 1928. Jennings died 96 years ago and just now are we finding baseball cards of his that haven't been offered publicly before - spectacular. Five cards of Joe Tinker are next, in the middle row of picture three. Tinker made the Hall of Fame in 1946. Three cards of another player inducted into the HOF in 1946 come next with a trifecta of Roger Bresnahan. The last two cards there on picture three are of Tris Speaker. Speaker STILL holds the baseball record for most career doubles and he hasn't played in a game since 1928!

As you view each photo in the slides, you'll continue to find players enshrined in Cooperstown, NY. Picture three has three cards of Miller Huggins (in the middle, yelling) - Huggins was the Yankees manager when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were on the greatest team in history, the 1927 Yankees.

Jimmy Collins catches your eyes with the red background in the middle row on picture four. Minneapolis is on his jersey as the T206 card is from his days with the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. If that team doesn't ring a bell, you are probably under 100 years old! Ready for this? Collins led baseball in home runs in ...1898. Staying in this time frame for a moment, just think about how much the world has changed since these cards came out between 1909 and 1911. Landing on the moon, the Internet, tapes to CDs to streaming, and the first movie to have sound (1927). These cards were created before movies had sound!

Picture five has great players from the Cubs, Giants, and Highlanders (later became the Yankees) including Mordecai Brown, Rube Marquard, John McGraw, and Hal Chase.

The seventh photo features a pair of Joe Kelley cards on the bottom right. Kelley, inducted into the HOF in 1976, led baseball in stolen bases way back in 1896!

The final photo shows the Southern Leaguers, fanned out. While the players aren't as famous as others, the cards themselves are key to putting a set together!

Each card from the collection is from the PIEDMONT brand, one of the 16 different brands of tobacco you'll find on the back of a T206 card.

A generational collection

When we inquired about the collection, the gentlemen that sent us the e-mail, Bryan, states each of the cards were collected by his great-grandfather who was a DENTIST. The cards were then passed down to the grandson who also became a dentist, and then on to Bryan's dad (you guessed it - they became a Dentist!). Bryan became the owner of the family T206 cards, and following in the family footsteps, he is practicing Dentistry as well.

Imagine a dentist today buying at least 400 packs of cigarettes to collect those baseball cards! There is a good joke in here but we don't want Kramer accusing us as an Anti-Dentite like Jerry Seinfeld (who remembers that episode? LOL). Who needs dentists? Just Collect does to purchase collections like this!

APPRAISAL AND PURCHASE

After reading the e-mail, we asked for images of the Hall of Famers in the collection. This way, we could begin to assess the condition and value of the cards. Bryan went a step further and provided an Excel sheet containing the name of each player, the position (as you see above, players have multiple cards and in different positions such as a portrait or throwing like Cy Young), the team, and if the player was in the Hall of Fame or not. Then came a small group of photos.

Our vintage card specialists reviewed the first batch of photos and responded with an evaluation. The owner wanted to "test the waters" before deciding to send all 400 T206 cards to us. You may be apprehensive about sending valuable cards through the mail, so we always offer a multitude of ways to evaluate your collection. If you're unable to come to our office in Summit, NJ. or attend one of the many conventions we set up at, or prefer us not to visit your home, shipping your collection is always a wonderful option. We offer our two-day, fully-insured FedEx account. Bryan opted to ship the Ty Cobb and Cy Young cards to us here at Just Collect and we then had PSA grade the three cards. We gave Bryan an evaluation results and fair offers on the entire collection or the collection without the three graded cards had they opted to hold onto the three bigger cards in the collection. Once the three cards returned from PSA, graded, Bryan chose to sell all 400 cards from the collection to Just Collect.

As you can see above, the picture just under the collection title, those FIVE bins were filled to the brim and shipped to us here at Just Collect. We worked with Bryan on how to prepare cards for shipping. Cards were each stored into proper holders, and placed into three large FedEx boxes. The five bins were clean, and the entire collection was well-organized. You can get an idea on just how many cards were in the collection by viewing the bins above. With collections of this size, it is very helpful for us to receive your collection in such a way; this helps us speed up the evaluation and purchase for you!

After agreeing to the sale, we then paid Bryan how he wanted to be paid! When you choose to sell your collection to Just Collect, we can pay you in cash, company check, wire transfer - just don't ask us to sit in for you in the dental chair (no drills here, please!).

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 like these T206 cards. This is where we are happy to help you. We have a two-step process: research and appraise the collection and then make the highest offer possible. With collections of this size, we must be thorough and treat the collection with the care it deserves.

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.

Travel to Us

If you can make the trip here like the son from my hometown did for this collection- we can make a deal at the office. We once met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet us to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.

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

We have another location in New York you can meet us at; 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.