T215 Pirate Harry Lord Boston/Chicago?

[Abravefan11]

We had the pleasure of previewing the upcoming offering of five T215 Pirate cards in the upcoming spring REA auction. One of the five cards is really intriguing and I wanted to get the thoughts of others.

As most people know the T215 Red Cross and Pirate cards were created from existing T206 artwork. Both of these sets updated some subjects to reflect new team designations from the time of their T206 selection.

Harry Lord was selected to be in the T206 set in early 1909, when he played for the Boston Red Sox, and his team designation and artwork reflect this. On Aug. 9, 1910, Lord was traded by the Red Sox to the Chicago White Sox. When his card was printed with the T215-1 Red Cross set his team designation was updated to Chicago Amer.

This brings us to the T215 Pirate to be auctioned by REA. His team designation is a bold Boston Amer., but a faint Chicago Amer. can be seen on the card. So if they were simply reusing the T206 image, why would a Chicago Amer. be visible? If they updated his image for the T215-1, why would they revert back to Boston Amer.?

I find this card really fascinating and would love to hear others thoughts on this anomaly.

[ullmandds]

wow...that's really interesting...and awesome to see 5 t215 pirate's hit the block...they won't go cheap!!!!!! All authentic...odd...how some appear handcut...the hoard that sold were very high grade...that one example with 2 backs perfectly split in middle...some odd characteristics for such a rare set.

[RCMcKenzie]

I don't recall seeing an overprint team designation like the one on the Lord card before. Very interesting. I've never thought the Red Cross and Pirate sets were parallel sets, but there are so few Pirate cards that show up that I don't really know much about them.

[atx840]

Drooooool.

Very cool Tim.

[buymycards]

I noticed that the back of the Pirate is different than the non sports version of a Pirate card on ebay. (I stole the scan) I have always wondered about the relationship between the Pirates and the Red Cross cards. The T215's are considered a Louisiana issue (I don't agree) and the Pirates are considered an English issue. SGC grades the non sports Pirates as 1910's anonymous issue.
Lot's of confusion and guesswork with these issues.

Tim, thank you for showing us this card. I may have to start cashing in my aluminum cans and my penny jar so I can make a run at one of these.

Rick

[cfc1909]

Rick there are several different backs for the non sport pirate

[buymycards]

Thanks Jim, I didn't realize that. I have been looking at Murrays Cigarette book I see that several Pirate NS sets were issued between 1910 and all the way up through 1928. Thanks for the info. I am intrigued by these sets and it is tough to find much info.

Rick

[cfc1909]

here are 3 different Pirate backs, non sport. There is also a blue non sport back.

[wonkaticket]

A few of the non-sports designs.

[sb1]

Would not all of this indicate the set was actually produced earlier than previously thought???

Also of the singles that sold at least one, if not two were AUT short top to bottom as well. The one I won(Lew's auction) was full size. I don't recall the others without googling them.

After the looking at the REA cards again, the first three are noticeably small, the Chance and the Lord appear full size. In fact the Lord has nearly the centering as the one I have without the angle cut top. As I recall the trimmed AUT's that sold may have had the angle cut "straightened up".

[steve B]

Semi crazy guess-

It looks like the name and lower half of the team didn't properly transfer to the plate. at any rate they're missing on the Chicago part.

Maybe if the transfer was bad and they were in a bit of a hurry they replaced the bad transfer with a leftover T206 transfer. Same art different team.

Or

They put down the correct transfer, looked at a proof or the transfer for red, saw Boston on the uniform and "corrected" the plate.

Very cool card however it happened.

Steve B

[atx840]

I know a boardmember has a top/bottom split miscut T215 Pirate back out there. Would like to see it show up here again

As close as I'll get - Chinese character..two packs.

[wonkaticket]

Agree neat card nice catch by Brian and the REA team.

[Abravefan11]

Originally Posted by sb1

Would not all of this indicate the set was actually produced earlier than previously thought???

We know based on team changes that some of the Pirate cards were printed well after the T206 set ended.

Neal Ball
In the T206 set his team designation is Cleveland and in the Pirate set it’s Boston American. Ball was purchased by Boston from Cleveland June 25, 1912.

Solly Hofman
In the T206 set his team designation is Chicago Nat’l and in the Pirate set it was updated to Pittsburgh. Hofman was traded to Pittsburgh from Chicago on May 30, 1912.

Harry Krause
In the T206 set his team designation is Philadelphia Amer. and in the Pirate set it’s Cleveland. Krause was sold from Philadelphia to Cleveland in July 1912.

Lefty Leifield
In the T206 set his team designation is Pittsburgh and in the Pirate set it’s Chicago Nat’l. Leifield was traded from Pittsburgh to Chicago May 30, 1912.

Barney Pelty
In the T206 set his team designation is St. Louis Amer. And in the Pirate set it’s Washington. Pelty was sold by St. Louis to Washington June 11, 1912.

These team changes are what makes this card perplexing to me. If the team caption was a carry over from the T206 set it would simply be Boston Amer. If it was updated like the Red Cross T215-1 Harry Lord it would be Chicago Amer. If the captions were reversed with the Boston faint and the Chicago bold, it would make more sense to me. But the Chicago update being faint, and the original Boston being bold is confusing.

Originally Posted by sb1

Also of the singles that sold at least one, if not two were AUT short top to bottom as well. The one I won(Lew's auction) was full size. I don't recall the others without googling them.

Here are the links to the two I believe you're referring to:
http://www.goodwinandco.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=14173
http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/.../2008/441.html

[caramelcard]

This is a strange issue.

Wills tobacco cards are the bottom of the barrel for non sports, aren't heavily collected and low quality. They were issued for decades with every subject matter imaginable. The fronts of the different issues have their own designs that are very "Wills tobacco looking".

And then there's these.

Just doesn't seem like the T206 images fit into the Wills repertoire and surprised they would use baseball subject matter in 1912.

Wonder how they got access to the images.

[atx840]

NOT MY CARD

Hopefully it's okay that I post this.

[Bosox Blair]

Just thinking out loud, but is there some chance this could relate to confusion with Bris Lord, who played 1913 with Boston (NL)? I know it does not say NL, but these kind of oddities have certainly happened in other sets (like E97)...

Cheers,
Blair

[Abravefan11]

Blair I think that's as good as any explination so far if we assume the Harry Lord printing order was:

T206 Boston Amer.
T215-1 Red Cross Chicago Amer.
T215 Pirate Boston Amer.

[Rob D.]

Looking forward to checking out a simulated sheet of Pirates.

[Rob D.]

In all seriousness, even though the Lord card is intriguing, I'm a bit surprised that the fact five Pirate cards will be offered in one auction hasn't generated more of a buzz. Even by REA's high standards, this group of cards has a serious "wow" factor (I'm not the consignor, nor do I know who is).

I've got to believe a T215 Pirate is on the want lists of quite a few type-card and T-card collectors. It will be fun to watch these this spring.

[Brian Weisner]

Hey Rob,
I agree... But it's tough to top the 2007 auction... 96/97...
Hope you are well Brian

PS I wish they had a Lajoie

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Those are very nice looking cards. I really love the back advertisement, I wish they were more common so I could pick one up just because of that.