Ty Cobb

1911-16 T216 Mino Ty Cobb

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This was the only known T216 Ty Cobb Standing Mino Cigarettes card in May 1992, as featured in the catalog of Richard Wolffers Auctions, Inc.

The lot, number 102, was titled and described as follows in the catalog:

1914 T216 Mino #16b Ty Cobb (Detroit Americans, standing), fairly well centered, gorgeous colors, fabulous gloss with a trivial surface wrinkle at the bottom right, this is the only known Ty Cobb “Mino” and, as such, one of the great tobacco card rarities, Ex-Nr Mt.

The estimated value was $7000-8000.

Now, concerning the claim of it being the only known Ty Cobb Mino back, Love of the Game Auctions wrote a piece about a rare T216 Honus Wagner with a Mino back that they were auctioning and said, “population reports for this issue are unreliable as they do not accurately reflect either the different variations of the set’s cards or the three different backs, it is our belief that there are fewer than a half dozen graded Mino Wagners in existence.” The grading companies each slab them a little differently. PSA puts “T216 People’s Tobacco” on the slab’s flip without a year and does not designate the back type but does add a glossy designation. SGC differentiates the set by the back, either “1911-16 Mino Cigarettes,” “1911-16 Kotton Cigarettes,” or “1911-16 Virgina Extra,” for example.

I did find the following scan of a Ty Cobb Mino on Flickr, with the description “T216 Ty Cobb—Standing—Mino—SGC 10.” It does share a couple of markings with the example in Wolffers’ catalog, but I can’t imagine they would have described this card as Ex-Nr Mt. So, it looks like there are at least two copies in the hobby.

If you want to know more about the set, Pre-War Cards, and Louisiana Cards have nice set overviews, and PSA has the following set profile online:

The T216 baseball set is a product of the People’s Tobacco Company of New Orleans, Louisiana, and was printed with various cigarette advertisement backs including Kotton, Mino and Virginia Extra. Produced from 1911 to 1916, the People’s Tobacco Co. issued this 73-player set over several season and displayed similar images to those of their contemporaries such as the E90-1 and E92 releases. The players hail from the American, National and short-lived Federal (1914-15) Leagues with the images appearing in full-color with his surname, position, team an league printed along the bottom border. The Kotton Cigarettes brand is far scarcer than the other two issues. Kotton offers two variations with one style having glossy image front while the second can be found on very thin stock paper, making high-grade example difficult to find. The backs are printed in black with the Kotton, Mino and Virginia Extra names as well as People’s Tobacco Co. Ltd. Chock-full of Hall of Fame talent, this unnumbered set is anchored by three Ty Cobb variations Christy Mathewson (2) Eddie Plank, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner (3), Hooke Wiltse and Cy Young, among many others.

1921 W551 Babe Ruth/Ty Cobb Strip Card Pairing

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The awesome thing about flipping through old catalogs is running across random cards and sets that pique your curiosity and make you learn more about the hobby; that’s precisely what happened when I saw this 1921 W551 Babe Ruth/Ty Cobb Strip in Mastro’s August 2006 catalog.

This example is graded 88 NM/MT 8 by SGC, but I found the 1922 date on the slab and the auction’s title interesting. I used to collect Babe Ruth strip cards and swore this was a 1921 card. So I double-checked Old Cardboard and PSA, and they both date the W551 set to 1921, and it turns out SGC does now as well. Weird…

After some more research, I learned that, if anything, someone could reasonably confuse these W551s with W514s since nine of the 10 baseball player strip card poses are the same. However, the text below the picture is a little different, and Ruth’s picture is entirely different.

Anywho, back to W551, here’s PSA’s set profile: 

The 1921 W551 baseball card set consists of 10 cards, each measuring approximately 1-3/8” x 3-1/4”. The unnumbered cards were printed in strips, with each front revealing a color drawing of a National Pastime hero. The player’s name and team name are printed in the bottom margin. The backs are blank. The W551 set is made up of Frank Baker, Dave Bancroft, Jess Barnes, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Wally Pipp, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, Tris Speaker, and Casey Stengel. Ruth’s example is by far the most desirable item.

And here are a few more W551 fun facts:

  • The cards are 1 3/8″ x 2 1/4″ (but vary drastically from hand cutting).
  • The set has 40 cards (boxers, other sports, movie stars) but only ten baseball cards, but it does have Gene Sarazen (golf) and W. Tilden’s (tennis) rookie cards, which are pricier than you’d think
  • 8/10 of the baseball players are Hall of Famers
  • There are really good reprints with blue labeling; there are also a lot of fake two-card strips (including fake Ruth/Cobb pairs)
  • The cards came in strips of 10

Also, despite there being a ton of them out there, including 13 Ruth/Cobb Panels from PSA and 8 from SGC, 168 PSA and 91 SGC Ruth strips, and 139 PSA Cobb and 76 SGC strips, these cards aren’t cheap. Happy collecting!