T210 dating revisited

[Archive]

Posted By: Shawn Chambers

Fellas,

I was admiring Brian's T210 that sold on B/S/T and noticed it was Keifel - Richmond Series 3. I have a Keifel - Lexington Series 6. A quick check with SABRs Minor League Encyclopedia lists George Keifel as a catcher with two different Virginia teams in 1909 before moving to Lexington in 1910.

I was reminded of the debate we had in a thread back on June 13th debating the T210 series as possibly being earlier than 1910 with Frank pointing out that he feels possibly the early series could have been released in late 1909, but most likely starting in early 1910.(Pipe up again, Frank). My own arguments in the thread were for 1910.

More and more, I am starting to feel like this series started in 1909. Keifel is pictured with Richmond which was, apparently, the first of two teams he played with that year in the Virginia League. The production team would have had to start very early in the 1909 season to capture his image from the Richmond team rather than the later Portsmouth team. I guess I'm having a hard time rationalizing why they would choose to sit on producing something for the better part of a year when they (ideally) would want a player's image to be as current to his team as possible given the (probably) limited appeal of these cards at the time to (mostly) the confines of the league's host cities. Releasing cards a year later for many players that have since moved on seems like defeating the purpose of producing cards for the "hometown heroes". On a major league level it is one thing, but I'm still guessing these were intended for a small market.

Any more thoughts? How many other players are depicted with two teams from DIFFERENT years?

Sorry for my verbiage.

Shawn