Gold Bordered Cobb or How I Decided to Start a T205 Set

After finishing up my T206 set, I was adrift in what I wanted to collect.  I picked up a 1973 Topps Schmidt to force me to finish that set, but I haven't even looked for another 1973 Topps card since then.  I picked up a few hockey cards, but after winning my white whale a few weeks ago, I haven't seen anything else that I really want to add to my collection either. 

However, I was on a message board last week, when someone was unfortunately asking for opinions about which of the few cards he had left should he sell.  On one side was an Old Judge Buck Ewing, while on the other side was a 1938 Joe DiMaggio card and a T205 Ty Cobb.  In opposition to my usual temperament, I shot of a quick E-Mail indicating that if he decided to sell the Cobb, let me know as I would be interested. 

So, a few days and about 20 PMs pass back and forth and my singular offer on the card is best in class.  So, I make payment for the card and begin the waiting process.  Yesterday, when I came home, there were two T205s, keys to the set, waiting for me.



Despite the technical grade of the card, the card displays very well for the grade.  Most of the damage is off in the corner and some small paper loss on the back, leaving the image of Ty Cobb untouched after 100 years.  Someone also made an attempt to recolor the left hand border if you look very closely, leading me to believe that Authentic would be a more correct technical grade. 



The back of the card and really all T205s are more interesting than those of their T206 counterparts.  Like a modern card, they have text and in many cases, a small number of statistics.  Here, we have Games Played, Batting Average and Fielding Percentage, which is not out of line with the stats of the day.  Collecting T205s is a bit more difficult for this reason, as there are less obvious places to hide damage on the cards while giving them good presentation and remaining affordable.  

So, a new journey begins, five cards out of the 220 cards safely in my possession. 

Where to From Here?

I feel I am at a collecting cross roads.  I am waiting for the cards I need to finish my T206 set to arrive from various states of the union, which was brought me back into collecting about two and a half years ago.  In my youth, I always loved tobacco cards and the players of the deadball era, so it was a natural fit.  I started with an Orval Overall which had seen better years, like 1913 and 1982, missing some borders and likely overpriced for the card, but it evoked a joy in me and got me started down the path.  The card I am closing my set with is fantastic and will be here by the weekend and looks nothing like the Orval Overall seen below.



I thought the project would take me somewhere between five and ten years if everything went right.  Well, things went a lot better than right and now I need a new focus.  I thought about T205s like the McGraw seen below, but I find it hard to be captured by them.  The other major tobacco offering of the era is the T207 set with an odd list of players and off-putting brown backgrounds.  I suspect, aside from hunting down every last Orval Overall issue I can get my hands on (a new one is on the way for the none of you who care about Overalls), I will wander through a lot of different sets.  I might finish my 1973 Topps set, which will almost certainly take me longer than my T206 set.  Motivation is critical and while I love putting cards in albums, I don't necessarily love the 1973 Topps set the way I love the T206s.



I also want to finish my 1910 Hassan Animals set.  The first set I finished when returning to the hobby was a set of 1910 T59 Flags of the World.  It took about two months and you would be surprised how many people were spoiling to move these cards.  I found almost every difficult back and aside from one card, I had no trouble getting everything together.

I also think I will fill in some more cards of deadball era players on modern cards.  I bought two Christy Mathewsons to close out the year, including the one below and entered a group break solely to add to my Ty Cobb collection (almost unsuccessfully).



Beyond that, we will see Diamond Stars.  The set is small enough to complete in a year, has cards with great color and images and is the only set from the 1930s which interests me, especially as it doesn't have incredibly cost prohibitive Ruths, Gehrigs or DiMaggios to chase.  For example, below is a Hall of Famer I picked up as part of a lot of three about a month ago. I'll show the other two when I need something to fill up some column inches or internet white space.



So, in conclusion, you might see less T206s and more Diamond Stars, but most likely you will see a great deal of purchases which just kind of happened.