Posted By:
JoannI used to like the action shots more because I somehow felt like they showed more of "baseball", and not just some guy. As I got more familiar with the individual players, I started to appreciate the texture and depth of the portraits more.
I think some of the T206 action shots have really neat backgrounds - Bat Off comes to mind immediately. But as sets go, I think that the T206 set has generally duller backgrounds for action shots than other sets. (Gads. Here it comes!) There are too many of the "orange sky" cards. Many others are just blue top half for sky and green bottom half for grass without much texture.
Just as an example, look at the E90-1 action shot backgrounds. Holy cow. Jordan? Oakes? O'Leary? They put the best T206's to shame. The Obaks - especially the (thinking hard here) 1910's? are really cool as well. Just generally more colorful, vibrant and interesting than the T206's.
So the popularity of T206 portraits over action may have several reasons. More depth and less cartoonish. Appreciation for a specific player. But also maybe because the T206 just doesn't have great backgrounds overall in the action shots. Some awesome backgrounds? Yep. But not A-1 compared to some other sets.
Which brings up a second question, I guess. Are portraits generally favored over action shots in all sets, or more in T206's?
J