A tobacco card, The Saturday Night Submit, the Atlanta fireplace of 1917, and the U.S. Military all play a job on this story. Should you’re a collector of baseball playing cards or collector of something previous, you will have puzzled in regards to the tales the cardboard or object may inform. It’s what usually involves my thoughts once I maintain an previous baseball card and there isn’t a finer instance of “previous baseball card” than a card from the T-206 white border baseball set. Recognized as T-206 by Jefferson Burdick in his Card Catalog first revealed in 1939. The “T” signifies a twentieth century tobacco card. The corresponding numbers Burdick selected had been primarily based on sure traits of the cardboard. Numbers 200-235 had been for sports activities points. 206 is the quantity Burdick chosen for these playing cards produced from 1909-1911 by the American Tobacco Firm. The T-206 is the Grand Daddy of baseball card units launched over the three 12 months interval of 1909-1911. Its most well-known card is that of Honus Wagner. The Wagner card from the T-206 set is so famend that even informal baseball followers are aware of it. Typically misidentified because the rarest baseball card, it’s unquestionably essentially the most precious card. Low grade copies of the cardboard promote for a number of million {dollars}.
There are 524 T-206 playing cards in your entire set, which is sometimes called “The Monster”. In addition to the Wagner, there are 3 different extraordinarily precious playing cards which are financially out of attain for many collectors. Many collectors name it full after amassing 520 playing cards. It was my pursuit of these 520 playing cards within the Monster that led me to a card of Gordon Hickman of the Cellular Sea Gulls. Hickman was a pitcher that by no means made it out of the Minor Leagues. His final season as a participant, in response to Baseball Reference was 1910 which was adopted by a few seasons managing Class D for two totally different groups in his dwelling state of Alabama. In a baseball card set of gamers with intriguing tales, Hickman falls brief. After I turned the cardboard over I observed a stamp on the again with a reputation and handle of town I reside in, Atlanta, Georgia.
As I continued to chase all 520 playing cards, I additionally stored an eye fixed out for an identical stamp. I slayed the Monster in 2024 and have but to discover a matching again stamp. There’s a website devoted to T-206 again stamps and my card of Gordon Hickman is the one one recognized on the positioning with this particular stamp. I knew on the time of buying the cardboard that I might attempt to discover out in regards to the identify on the again.
The again of my Gordon Hickman card has a stamp on the again of a former Saturday Night Submit agent by the identify of Lesesne McAllister. Stamps on the again of previous tobacco playing cards aren’t uncommon, nor are stamps of Saturday Night Submit brokers. The Saturday Night Submit began utilizing younger boys to promote their periodical across the flip of the century. This tactic performed a think about rising their circulation and revitalizing the periodical. The Saturday Night Submit highlighted enterprise success of sincere, arduous working people and tried to assist create enterprising younger males by means of their agent program. Younger boys may grow to be brokers and promote papers. By way of a continuing sequence of “gross sales competitions” they inspired the boys to promote extra to earn prizes.
There are no less than 13 of those younger males identified to us that stamped their identify on the again of a T-206 baseball card. It looks as if an inexpensive approach to create their very own enterprise card, particularly after we contemplate the time. The tobacco playing cards with footage of baseball gamers had little financial worth in 1910. Nor 40 years later when younger boys within the 1950’s would put their Topps or Bowman playing cards within the spokes of their bicycles to create motor sounds.
The handle on the again was 425 Jackson St. in Atlanta. The road is now referred to as Parkway Drive and the home numbers modified years in the past. I used to be in a position to pinpoint the approximate location of the place the home stood utilizing the Metropolis Listing from 1911. The McAllister residence is proven between two crossing streets that haven’t modified names since then.
This was confirmed by the Sanburn Hearth maps from the identical time interval. To suppose that 115 years in the past a younger man stamped this card close to this spot and carried it down this precise road to provide to a possible buyer close by. It needed to have occurred earlier than 1912 as a result of the Metropolis Listing that 12 months states the McAllister household of 425 Jackson St moved to New Mexico. I used to be in a position to deliver this card again to its location from about 115 years in the past. Within the metropolis of Atlanta with a lot historical past, this location is 1 mile North of the place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. grew up. One mile West from the place Ponce De Leon Park stood, the house of the Atlanta Crackers and the place baseball legends as soon as performed exhibition video games on their manner north after Spring Coaching. It’s now a car parking zone, however there’s a Magnolia Tree nonetheless standing {that a} Babe Ruth dwelling run ball as soon as landed. The house of Lesesne McAllister stood three miles North from the place Hank Aaron hit dwelling run quantity 715.
With 1000’s of T-206’s nonetheless in existence, it appears very potential that a number of playing cards sharing this similar stamp from Lesesne McAllister nonetheless exist. Till we study what occurred in 1917 when a hearth ravaged by means of components of Atlanta destroying houses in its path. The fireplace originated downtown in a low earnings neighborhood and unfold quickly north. Picket shingled roofs had been the right kindling to feed the flames. Houses had been destroyed north of the flames in hopes to take away the gas to feed the hearth. The home the place the McAllister’s lived was close to the sting of the tip of the destruction. This site gives additional particulars of the Atlanta Hearth of 1917.
It’s very potential that there have been T-206 baseball playing cards with the Saturday Night Submit stamp of Lesesne McAllister that went up in flames in 1917. Whereas I used to be in a position to deliver the cardboard again to the road the place it was stamped in 1910 or 1911. It’s almost certainly Lesesne by no means returned after his household moved to New Mexico. So what grew to become of Lesesne McAllister? His first identify is written in pencil on the again of the cardboard. Did he write it or did another person? It appears odd that he would have written his identify after stamping his identify on the cardboard. Maybe the particular person he gave it to, wrote his identify to focus on the identify of their Saturday Night Submit provider.
As for younger Lesesne, at 17 he joined the U.S. Military in 1915. He later served within the Medical Corps abroad throughout World Warfare I. Sadly, on October twenty first, 1920 the The Night Herald from Albuquerque, New Mexico reported him dying from pleasant fireplace in MacAllen, Texas close to Camp Travis. He was there engaged on the Mexican border whereas serving within the U.S. Military. As with all historical past it is very important perceive what was taking place on the time. The Military wasn’t there in 1920 due immigration. The Military was there to guard in opposition to Mexican Revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa.
He was there engaged on the Mexican border whereas serving within the U.S. Military. As with all historical past it is very important perceive what was taking place on the time. The Military wasn’t there in 1920 due immigration. The Military was there to guard in opposition to Mexican Revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa.
So here’s a card that was produced 115 years in the past and we all know slightly about who and the place it was 115 years in the past. After all the cardboard was in somebody’s possession till a card collector acquired it, however that historical past is totally unknown. However from a stamp on the again of a card, a sliver of the cardboard’s historical past may be ascertained.
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