Posted By:
Brian H (misunderestimated)19th Century :
I have to go with the cards I actually own (and can hope to own):
Old Judges
(always fascinating to see new ones -- they capture the primitive state of the game in the late 1880's with all sorts of wonderful posed images) Personal favorites include the cards with the nicknames ("Smiling Mickey", "$10,000 Kelly", "Long John" and "Little Nick" etc); favoriet images include: the Ewing with Mascott card and the Harry Wright "as God" portrait.
Mayos
In theory at least I could complete this set -- which also seems to capture the age )I particularly like the images of the late career Cap Anson and the still-youthful Kid Nichols)
E-Cards
As will be appparent by my T-card choices I like cards that use the back and the front for more than just adds and tells us about the playerson the front. So I'll vote for the 14-15 Cracker Jacks which hve the added bonus of including Federal Leaguers and some interesting figures not normally included in sets (HOFERS Rickey, Mack and Comiskey come to mind). I also love that the Joe Jackson card actually calls him "Shoeless Joe Jackson".
T-Cards :
The T205 set may have been the first major set that included stats and biographical information about the players on the back. The portraits (and the Minor Leaguers) are also gorgeous and framed in the beautiful but fragile Gold Borders.
The T202 set does the previous year's T205 set one better with action photos that seem to capture the very essence of the dead ball era in words on the back and in pictures on the front. The side panels are generally akin to those in the T205s minus the stats and Gold Borders.
Other sets:
I'm a Fan Craze fanatic --- wonderful portraits on relatively large cards of the dawn of the 20th century. Personal favorites are the cards of Wagner (with the famous protrait), AL President/Founder Ban Johnson (lloking every bit as self-important as he was in his day); Ned Hanlon (Hall of Fame Manager looking quite ingenous and shown as a Manager unlike the earlier cards depicting him); ill-facted NL President Pulliam, who died by his own hand; and Jake Beckley looking very nineteenth century; and finally, Sam Crawford so fortuitously on the "Triple" card (Crawford is the all-time leader in Triples and unless things change quite a bot his record should stand for the forseeable future.)