Some Questions about Vintage Cards that Keep Me Awake at Night

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Posted By: John Spencer

They say an idle mind is a devil's workshop, but when mine is idle I think about vintage card enigmas, which shows it is idle a lot of the time. The top ones that keep me noodling are:
1. Why did Goudey use Nap Lajoie for the missing #106 in the '33 set when I believe he had been out of organized baseball since 1916? The only ones in the set from remotely the same period still active in the game were Rogers Hornsby, Burleigh Grimes, Eppa Rixey and Babe Ruth.
2. Why in the N172 Old Judge Anson in uniform so nearly impossible to find when his pose in a suit is relatively easy? "Cap" was notoriously vain, so maybe he thought he looked more distinguished in his Sunday best and somehow managed to have the other pulled.
3. Why are so many stars of the day missing from the T207 set, such as Cobb, Matty, Lajoie, and why if they included Tinker and Chance, didn't they include Evers. Money would seem to the obvious answer but who knows?
4. I may not be on solid ground here but, I don't believe that Walter Johnson is in any E card sets. Why not? He was in plenty of T card sets.
5. If, as Lew Lipset says, the E90-1 Mike Mitchell card is the T206 Wagner of E cards,why does it seem to fetch so relatively little at auction? Sure he was no star but it seems his card should be worth more than it brings.
6. Sure the Babe and Lou didn't get along all that well, particularly after Ruth called Gehrig, "a Mama's boy", but still couldn't Goudey have included Ruth in the '34 set among the high numbers behind "Chuck Klein says"?
Any help on these mysteries appreciated.