T206 Southern League article

[Michael Peich]

Thank you all for the nice responses.

David--You raise an interesting, and essential point. There is no extant record(s) of payment by ATC to players for the right to use their photo. The only sense of payment I have is from earlier research on T209-2.

The players depicted in the Contentnea series received copies of their card, and possibly a few (1-3) copies of a postcard version of their pose used for the tobacco card. This is based on two sources: the letters of Fred Stoehr (Goldsboro) written to his wife in which he mentions the cards and postcard, and a copy of his player postcard sent to his wife. The postcard payment theory is also given credence by the fact that very few of the T209-2 player postcards survive, and they almost always originate from the player's estate when it enters the marketplace through auction or private sale.

My suspicion is that ATC paid cash and gave copies of the card to each player, but who knows? If someone on the forum has copies of ATC payment records I would enjoy seeing them.

Cheers,
Mike