How many pre-war cards from Scrapbooks?

[ctownboy]

I don't know what percentage of cards have come from scrapbooks but I have a sad story to tell.

Back in the 1990's, I found a guy in Georgia who had about 500 T206's that his Grand Father had collected when they first came out. The cards had been in a scrapbook but the guy and his brother had removed them after they inherited them. Unfortunately, when doing so, they really messed them up.

Not only were chunks missing from the edges of some of the cards but there were also chunks missing from the backs. It was really sad because he had numerous Cobb's, Young's, Johnson's and other Hall of Famers. The backs were Piedmont and Sweet Caporal (as far as I can remember).

The guy said he and his brother just pulled the cards from the scrapbook because they thought they would be easier to store if they were out of the book. I told him he had made a big mistake and that the cards would have been better off (and more valuable) if he had just left them in the scrapbook.

David