subject: T206 Series of Baseball Cards [print this page] T206 Series of Baseball Cards T206 Series of Baseball Cards
The 1909-1911 T206 series of baseball cards is without a doubt, the most sought after baseball card set ever. The T206 "white border" set contains the most valuable card ever, the legendary Honus Wagner, one of which sold for $2.8 million. Even lower grade Wagners bring $200,000 and up.
The T206 series was produced by the American Tobacco Company and consists of 524 cards. This number includes the "Big Four", those being the Wagner, the Magie (Magee Error card), Doyle, and Plank. Those four cards are extremely pricey.
The T206 set is often called "The Monster" for its size and challenging nature. It contained 389 Major League players, and 135 Minor League players. The set contains over 520 player poses on the fronts, and 16 different advertisements on the backs. The set also contained some multiples of some players in different poses and even different uniforms, and different teams after trades took place, as it took over three years to produce the set.
The T206 series contains Baseball Hall of Fame members such as Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and of course the Honus Wagner. The back of the cards contained advertisements for the tobacco products the cards were placed in. Piedmont and Sweet Caporal were two of the most popular advertisements found on the back of the T206 cards.
Ty Cobb had four different cards in the set, two portrait poses, one with red background, and one with a green background, one with the bat on his shoulder, and one with the bat off the shoulder. Walter Johnson had two cards, one portrait and one with his hands at his chest. Christy Mathewson had three cards in the set, one card with a portrait pose, one card with a dark cap, and one card with a white cap. Cy Young had three cards in the set, one card with a portrait pose, one card with the glove showing, and one card with the bare hand showing. There is only one Wagner card in the set, and there is thought to be only around 75 in existence.
The serious baseball card collector is always on the look out for any of the T206 series cards. The set is a major challenge, but thanks to so many being produced, they can be found easily online at prices all across the board.
