[G1911]

Anyone know much about the T220 Silvers? I love the look of these and have collected them for the last ~15 years and have 100 or so, mostly lo grade, though only 23/25 different missing the obvious 2. This was the first non-baseball set I collected.

- The Donovan and James J. Corbett are extremely tough. I know of only 3 Donovan’s and maybe 12-20 Corbett’s. Perhaps their was a premium associated with completing the set? I’m not aware of the ATC ever doing this during the 1909-1911 era though. Would love to add these to my set some day

- Jack Goodman has long been checklisted but I have never seen one or heard of anyone able to verify it’s existence. As there are at least 2 extremely short printed cards int he set, it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a copy of this card somewhere, or another unchecklisted card. The checklist is odd with many of the biggest names only appearing in the white border set.

- The Donovan and Joe Coburn cards feature significant differences in the backgrounds of the artwork as compared to their white border cards. Why they would bother to change backgrounds remains a mystery to me. I have never seen a silver card with the backgrounds present on their white border counterparts. Perhaps the Donovan was pulled to change the background, but that doesn’t explain why the James Corbett is also extremely scarce.

- Issued after Joe Gans death in August 1910, but theres nothing else to pinpoint a date of issue. Presumably late 1910-1911.

- Of the 23 “standard” cards, I suspect they don’t all have the same print run. Some of the cards seem to come up quite a bit less, but I stopped tracking them all years ago. I know many of the PSA/SGC graded cards have been cracked and submitted several times, so I'm reluctant to use their data.

- They seem to be about as common as Tolstoi backed white borders.

- I have never seen one with a factory 30 back, only factory 649 that is more common among the white borders and in all other Mecca sets.