T207
 

This set is very appealing to me. I've run into a few of the Broadleaf and Cycle back cards and I am intrigued by the cards and their rarity. I understand that the set is shy of some of the "star players" in other T sets, but to me that makes the issue all that more interesting. Seems even tougher than the other T sets...has anyone ever put it together? Would love to hear others thoughts and see what folks have out there.

I started working on T207 about a year and a half ago when I bought 110 raw Recruit backs for a decent price. Even though I've been collecting for more than 50 years, I was really ignorant about the T207s. I knew there were some tough cards but I had no idea there were so many and how tough some of them were.
Now, after 18 months of aggressive buying, I'm 7 cards from a master set. I have spent thousands of dollars to build what is in fact a low-grade near set. The vast majority of my cards are 1s or 2s.
Its by far the toughest set I've worked on (the 1955 Rodeo Meats set was as hard but much smaller). But I'm glad I finally decided to take it on because its a true challenge and much of the fun of set-building is in the hunt.
If you like a challenge, you'll love T207.

T207s have some real toughies, no doubt. And some of them reside with the most common back, recruit. Here are a few from my last collection. I don't own them any longer...

https://luckeycards.com/pt207groupof8.jpg

MY favorite set by far, there are so many rarities. A serious challenge and every card towards the end becomes such an accomplishment.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=28955https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=28956

The rarest back by far is the Red Cross. Known is a Weaver and one other common whose name escapes me. The T207's are a challenge in trying to match players and reverses; frustrating and challenging at times but worth the effort.

The Lewis is the toughest by far and that is an exemplary card!

It's a great set, I'm a Donlin and both Lewis variations short of a full run.

T207 ...
 

Definitely my favorite as well - most of the T207 collectors on Net54 know of my obsession (sickness?) with this set. Though I've been away for the better part of a year or more, I collected it fairly actively from '06 -> '18, and was 70 cards or so away from all front/back combo's excluding Red Cross and Lewis (no-emblem). The former (14 examples) are basically unique, and the latter is of little interest to me at the going prices. I say 'was', because pretty much everything is now priced beyond what I would normally have paid, even in the run-up in 2005-2010, so I'm done.

In spite of the drawbacks to the set in terms of player makeup, artwork, and color aesthetics, there's a lot to find interest in. Glad to hear of continued interest in this set that's near and dear to my heart. Lots of good information to be had from a search here - many also turn up in Google searches.

FWIW, a fair number of collectors on the board have completed the set ... some even a number of times. My contribution...

I love this set too. Mike's image event page is must see if you are interested in this set. Here are a few of my favorites:

T207s
 

I'm another big fan of T207's. Here's Donlin:

T207
 

Back in the mid-1990's, I put together a (99.5% complete) T207 set. Some years later, I sold it to a Net54 member.

I kept the Chester Hoff card, since It was one of the toughest T207 cards to find.



https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...etHoffT207.jpg . https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...tHoffT207b.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

strange that you say that, considering it seems that the T207 set has greatly lagged other sets in terms of price appreciation.

T207: Great set!
 

I picked up all the catchers with the exception of Lewis Irving. Not sure I'll ever pick one up now. Traded away my Peaches Graham with a Napoleon back in a trade deal for an orange border T210 Yantz. Guess I'm moving in the wrong direction.

Here is the last T207 I picked up, a Gabby Street with a Napoleon back!


Patrick

T207
 

Pelty / Broadleaf.

T-207
 

Amazing how rare these guys are. Some other Broadleaf / Cycle backs.

Has the Speaker ever been found with a back other than Recruit?

I collect cards of all the players who were on the Washington Senators 1924 WS Championship team, which is why I have these, and only these, T207 cards:

This is my only T207, a Moran/Recruit back. I had never even heard of this set until I picked this up a few months ago.

That Pelty Broadleaf is not only a beautiful condition card, but it possesses incredible artistic appeal as well. Many of the Broadleaf/Cycle cards take the art up a notch from the regular Recruits. For a low dollar collector like myself, their scarcity means they are typically not in my economic zone. Here is one I was somehow able to snag awhile back...a Hoff Cycle with Buck Barker writing on back.

Brian

John, it won't come with any of the tough backs, just Recruit and possibly/probably Napoleon, as they are the only crossover back with the Recruits.

Speaker does exist with Anonymous Factory 3 and Napoleon backs. Scott, wouldn't you say both of those backs are tougher to find than Broadleaf? Imo they are both noticeably less plentiful.

In fact, the anonymous 3 back is the only one that can be found on all subjects. The recruit class subjects are quite scarce with the anonymous 3 backs.

I missed listing Anonymous Fact. 3 along with the Napoleon, thanks for the correction.

Anon 3 backs
 

Actually, the Anonymous 3 back has only been found on 99 different cards. Interesting that over 100 of the most common players with Recruit backs have never been found with an Anon 3 back.

Yeah only 49 of the "Recruit Class" players have been found with Anon Fact 3 back. I expect there was a 50th printed, and hopefully we find out who it is someday. Based on artwork, and which players have been found with blank backs, the possibilities for that 50th player can be narrowed down to just a handful.

Is WaJo 1 of the 49 "Recruit Class" players who has been found with the Anon. Fact. 3 back?

Is there a list available of the 49 known "Recruit Class" Anon Factory 3 subjects? Perhaps someone on here has the elusive 50th without knowing it.

Brian

Val, no Wajo is not in that group.

Brian, here is the site I use for my t207 questions. It's Mike's image event site.

https://imageevent.com/gspinf/t207br...2ghxuok2.goose

If you look at all 49 of those poses, you'll see that they bear a striking resemblance to the Broadleaf class poses. In other words, the artwork for this group of 49 (probably 50) was of very high quality, just as the Broadleaf class poses are.

The first 100 players (I realize the checklist has more than 100 poses) in the Recruit Class contain some pretty clunky artwork (Johnson, Konetchy, Reulbach, etc).

So, whoever the 50th member of the Recruit Class that was printed with Anon Fact 3 backs is, it will be a pose that has high quality artwork. It won't be WaJo or Konetchy, etc.

Also, there have been a decent amount of Recruit Class players found with blank backs, but none of them have been in that group of 49. So, I l believe we can exclude any Recruit Class player who has been found with a blank back from being the possible 50th member of the Anon Fact 3 group. The reasoning there is the blank backs that are out in the hobby probably came from a handful of sheets, and as of now at least, all the known BBs feature poses from the first 100 Recruit Class poses.

Thanks for the link Luke, and added info on your other post. That is a great site for T207 that I need to check into closer.

It looks like none of my four Anon. Factory 3 "Recruit Class" cards are that elusive 50th subject. I pass that potential discovery crown to the next collector.

Brian

T-207
 

I was always under the impression that the Red Cross backs were the scarcest, followed by the Red Cycle and Broadleaf back series. Can anyone confirm this? I guess all cards in this set are fairly scarce in comparison to some of the more common T-206 front / back combinations.

Luke, many thanks for your most helpful response.

The T207's ...
 

Thank you Luke, you've covered the state as we currently know it pretty well - at least as far as I know it, but there are still a bunch of unknown's in the T207 world, maybe we'll learn more with new discoveries.

As Ron says, there are only 99 known poses with the Anon Factory 3 back - the usual 50 from the Broadleaf class of cards, and 49 from the Recruit class. Lewis no-emblem is also known, so you could say its 100, but that's splitting hairs. The 49 Recruits is just so unsatisfying of a number, that we all want it to be 50 to make a nice tidy bit of symmetry, but one hasn't been found. I think the ideas of print (portrait) quality and coloring go a long way to narrowing it down to a handful of likely suspects for the potential 50th (see #4 below).

In his early 2000's survey published in VCBC#37/38, Tim Newcomb proposed the various "series" of Recruits, and documented 23 of the "Anon 3 Recruits" and hypothesized there might be 50. Following that, others were recorded and the known count was at 44 until a Heritage auction in late 2012 had the full set of 99 Anon factory 3, 49 of which were the ones we have as catalog today. The number of complete subsets of the 49 is at least one - I do not know of others.

In addition to the "missing 50th anon-Recruit", there are other oddities:

1. The relationships (or lack thereof) between the different Recruit back variations is also curious ... there seems to be no overlap (at least so far seen) between Recruits with:

• Anonymous Factory 3
• Blank backs
• Brown-printed/brown-ink backs

I'm sure there will be some overlap found (most likely blank and brown-ink) - both are seeing population growths (or at least new-to-the-current-collectors).

2. The relative population differences of blank-backs between classes:

• Some Recruit poses are known with 2 or 3 copies (Ferry has 3 known, I believe) ... not sure that population of blank-backs are known, but it could be a research project.
• There are only 3 blank-backs known in the entire set of Broadleaf-class cards (Fournier, Ragan, Sweeney).

3. Why are Anon Factory 3 Recruits the most condition-sensitive sub-class of all T207's? At one point (5 or so years ago, maybe?) the highest graded was a PSA3.5/SGC 45. I have no idea whether that has changed, but would be surprised if it had changed much. The same is not entirely true for the Broadleaf-class cards as there are some nice Ex-Mt or better examples.

4. Why do the Recruit cards known with anon factory 3 backs have colorations similar to the broadleaf cards, not the other Recruits? Look at the 'T207 By team' from the ImageEvent site you reference. Its most obvious with the use of blue in Pittsburgh, Washington, and Brooklyn, and red lettering with Boston (both), but other than Rucker, its pretty consistent...

5. Why do the population differences between the Factory 240 and 606 Recruits seem to inversely mirror the relative difficulty (harder Recruits seem to have larger populations of the Factory 606 backs, relatively speaking). That's just my perspective from looking at lots of them... I'd also go out on a limb and say that better examples of harder Recruits are (slightly) more often a factory 606 back.

6. Yes, Ethan, Red Cross is (by far) the most difficult back, with less than 20 total copies known. All are unique except Blackburne (of which two are known). All that said, why do we not have a full confirmed list with visuals of the Napoleon backs? The Napoleon back confirmation thread still shows 11 as unconfirmed, most interestingly all the 'corrected' versions of the Recruit variations remain unconfirmed.

There are lots more things to ponder, but this is already way longer than intended. Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom ... should have put a TL;DR warning and summary at the top.

--
Mike

and speaker...
 

Here are the Speaker cards ....

Re: T207
 

Apologies for the wrong information above. Was referencing Lew Lipset's Encyclopedia. 99 does seem like a strange number, but after all these years, I question whether any more will be discovered.

Saw the thread regarding your favorite T207(s) with the Recruit Back. Got me wondering if there's a thread to share T207s in general. Not too often I get to share these with relevancy.

One question I have: has anyone ever seen a T207 Grover Hartley with a Red Cross back? Or is that simply an assumption based on the back run "rules" with this set?

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...9g&oe=62065102
https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...1w&oe=6206D834

Mike,

As to your #3 thought to ponder about some backs are found more worn...

Look at a handful of ungraded white border cards, T206's. By only looking at the fronts, sort them into 2 piles, more worn, rounded corners to the left, other cards to the right. Then look at the backs. Series 150 are more likely to be in the 'worn' pile. Look at some ungraded E90-1s. The caramel cards usually went straight into a kid's hand, not so much so with cigarette cards. Kinds would stack their cards, tie them together with thread, carry them in a pocket, handle them with grimey little kid hands. Kids got hold of series 150 T206's first, they had more time to inflict wear upon them. I suggest that maybe Anon factory 3 T207s were among the first of the T207s that were distributed. Kids would have taken up with the new cards and their interest in earlier cards would have diminished a bit. I don't think those cards were more fragile, mor susceptible to wear, but those cards may have received more wear from the kid factor. Seems likely to me.

Is this a brown ink back?

https://photos.imageevent.com/joejo2...rge/img739.jpg

T207
 

No that card does not look like a brown back.

Regarding Red Cross backs, I don't think Hartley has ever been found. There are only about 10 players known with Red Cross backs. Harley does come with an Anonymous Factory 3 and an Anonymous Factory 25 back.

There's another Anonymous Factory back for Hartley? Son of a...

Yep, there is ...
 

Anon 25 ...

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=32492 https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=32493

and as Ron says .. no RedCross of Hartley is known at this point in time, though one is certainly in the realm of possibility, small as that might be ...

--
Mike

Maybe?
 

I tend to agree with Ron on this - and that its likely not, but it definitely makes you look twice. There are a number of well-known examples that are very clearly brown. There are a good number of others that you could argue are brown. The one thing that seems consistent to me is that scans and pics do not do the brown print backs justice - when viewed on screen, they mostly look meh.

Here's a Gardner for comparison.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=32494

--
Mike

Thanks for your input. I removed the cards from penny sleeves and took a photo instead of a scan. What do you think now?
https://photos.imageevent.com/joejo2...Background.jpg

I've always loved this set for whatever reason, I can't put my finger on it. Some of these cards, like the Lowdermilk, make me think of old haunted looking photos you'd see hanging on the wall in a horror movie or something.

SGC says this graded WaJo is brown, whereas my raw example is clearly black. The color difference appears more noticeable when holding them in hand.

Hey Val,

If SGC labeled it as such, it likely is - they've tended to be ~fairly good about such... Others on the board have pretty much said what I allude to it the previous post - when looking at them in hand - the differences is almost always blatantly obvious, and that the color differences are stark.

I've tried different scanners, photos, lighting, etc... but clearly I suck at that because when posted, its never as clear as in hand.

--
Mike

Thanks, Joe - a good side-by-side in the same photo makes all the difference - it has my vote as brown.

One of the other hallmarks for me (for many, not all) is that the paper has a more yellowish hue - sometimes very strongly. Don't how that might be related, but you can often pick them out when looking at groups of cards that way, at least for closer inspection.

I don't know if anyone is cataloging the off-backs with T207 (brown print/blank back), but this gets my vote to be added to the list.
--
Mike

I picked up these examples primarily because I have never owned a T207 card.

Thanks for confirming and for more details. I felt like it was brown ink but wanted a second opinion. Joe

I found when searching for the cards to put together a NYA team set, they were easy to find except Chester Hoff. It took about ten years to find my different Huff backs ! When i finished finding the commons I had to try to replace them with the tough Napoleon backs, still working on the backs !!