Rare T-sets: T214 Victory, T215 Red Cross, and T215 Pirate

I was hoping we could get a discussion going on this trio of intriguing T sets. Beyond their obvious rarity, they seem to be related in a number of ways, most clearly in that they all share poses with the T206 set. As far as I know, none of the sets contain any unique poses (please correct me if it can proven otherwise).

The backs of the T214 Victory cards claim to contain "90 poses". Yet, according to Lipset's tobacco guide circa 1986, only 30 poses were known, and according to a more current source, Old Cardboard, "less than 60" poses are known today. So there is some lingering intrigue as to which cards actually exist and which do not. Lipset's checklist contains a Cobb, but many of the popular T206 HOFers are absent (no Matty, Johnson, or Young). Does anyone know which HOFers have been discovered since? Another similarity between the T214's and T215's (and coupons for that matter) is their glossy surface which is prone to cracking and creasing. T214's appear to be the most difficult of all Louisiana tobacco issues.

The T215 Red Cross set is similar to the T213 Coupons in that the captions on type 1 Red Crosses have brown captions just like the Coupon type 1's, while the Red Cross type 2's have blue captions, just like the Coupon type 2's and 3's. One difference is that the Red Crosses do not have glossy surfaces like Victories and Coupons do. While the backs of the Red Crosses read "100 designs", Lipset states in his guide that 88 are known in Red Cross type 1's, and 79 are known in type 2. I'm sure the checklist has expanded in recent years.

The T215 Pirate set is possibly the most intriguing of all. There is some disagreement as to whether the Pirate backed cards should share the same set designation as the Red Crosses. It seems counter intuitive that they do, since the Pirates were released in England by W.D. & H.O. Wills, a tobacco manufacturer which released many other tobacco sets including boxing and golf sets. Also, the backs of the Pirate cards contain an exotic design printed in a light greenish ink, which is shared by a non sports set which features Chinese captions on their fronts. Variations have been noted in the non-sports set, where the pack of cigarettes on Pirate backs are closed, opened, opened with a few cigarettes extended, and printed in different colors. These variations have not been discovered on the baseball subjects. It is widely held that the Pirate backed baseball cards were made to be distributed to American servicemen stationed in the South Pacific. The captions on the Pirate cards are identical to the Red Cross type 1 captions, and are always in brown print (never blue).

Recently there was a near set (96/97) of high grade Pirate cards auctioned off in Mastro. This find contained many subjects that were previously uncatalogued (Mathewson, Mordecai Brown, Byrne/St. Louis, McIntyre/Detroit and Miller). The one card absent from this find was the Danny Murphy card. The majority of the cards in this find were graded SGC 80 and above. The lot closed at $800,000 in July of 2007. If someone here could shed more light on the details of that find (ie. where they were found), that would be great.

Whatever info or personal experience you can add to the info above would be much appreciated. I also welcome scans of T214's and T215's that belong to Full Count members.

We know from the t205 set that claims of a certain number of cards being issued can be misleading. Possibly a marketing ploy to get people to keep trying to get the missing cards.

Jay

I don't have alot of info on these sets but the Pirates I have are with Chinese on the front -I have an example with the pack open and with the pack closed. And 1 Victory a Smith/Baltimore SGC 10 -cracking on the front and the same pose as the T206. No Red Cross yet.

I owned one T215 Pirates card (it was the Doolan recently sold by Steve Verkman for around $10k!). It was definitely hand cut on the bottom (I believe). Like all of the Pirates cards I have seen, it was in immaculate condition however. This leads me to believe these cards were NEVER issued to servicemen in packs as has been speculated. I was in the military for six years and know that people in the military tend to be "savers" - saving letters, and odd things most people would throw away. IF these cards did come in packs of cigs. issued to military personnel, we would definitely have seen some in mangled condition that had been brought home in a soldier's duffle bag for his kids by now. Instead, all of the T215 Pirates cards are in very nice condition, which leads me to believe they were printed and NOT issued - the examples we have probably came from persons involved with the printing of these cards.

Jim - I have a couple of extra T215 Red Crosses, I would include in a trade - hint hint.

scott elkins wrote: Like all of the Pirates cards I have seen, it was in immaculate condition however. This leads me to believe these cards were NEVER issued to servicemen in packs as has been speculated. I was in the military for six years and know that people in the military tend to be "savers" - saving letters, and odd things most people would throw away. IF these cards did come in packs of cigs. issued to military personnel, we would definitely have seen some in mangled condition that had been brought home in a soldier's duffle bag for his kids by now. Instead, all of the T215 Pirates cards are in very nice condition, which leads me to believe they were printed and NOT issued - the examples we have probably came from persons involved with the printing of these cards.

That's a really good point Scott, and I agree with you. Notice the wording in my description of their distribution:

Fisherboy7 wrote:It is widely held that the Pirate backed baseball cards were made to be distributed to American servicemen stationed in the South Pacific.

Yes, they could have been made to be distributed to servicemen overseas. Whether they actually were distributed in this fashion is yet to be proven. I suspect, for the reasons you stated above, that they were not. Because of their extreme rarity and the almost uniformly high grade they've been found in, it seems more likely that they printed just a few runs of Pirate cards which never left the factory.

I don't really have too much to add to the discussion, as I'm not much of a student of the hobby. I appreciate the knowledge that others contribute, but I generally just think of cards as cool little pictures of the ballplayers of long ago. And as promotional pieces for candy and tobacco companies - the more obscure the better, which is probably why I love T214's, -15's and -16's so much.

Anyway, for awhile I was snapping up just about every card from those three types I could get my hands on. Since scaling back the size of my collection, I let quite a few go, especially Red Crosses, by I still have some left:





The Chase is currently at SGC because a) I'm a neurotic freak and b) I like PSA less than ever.

Steve, those are some very nice cards. Which reminds me, it is time for my weekly view of your website. I really like how you have your website set up and your cards are really nice!

Ehh, it's been kinda stagnant lately. Part of it is because I haven't been acquiring much. Plus I'm aggravated with my own stupidity, as two of my last three T206 pickups are cards I already had. Same back even. Actually one of them is an AB Jap Barbeau, which could very well be heading your way in the near future. The other's an Old Mill Jimmy Hart. Too bad it's not a Hindu dupe for you.

Steve,
Wanna sell the T215 Chase?

For a while I had a pretty good little collection of T215 (Red Cross) cards, I really love the back of that card.

About the T215 Pirates, I agree with Scott about the set never being released. It's just too weird to have only 1 or 2 know and all the others are in top condition?

sdbh

Since I can never afford a baseball T215 Pirate backed card, I started collecting non-sport pirate backed cards some time ago. Here are a few of the different Pirate backs that exist:

Chinese Warriors come in three different backs:

1) closed pack
2) open pack with small man and small cannon
3) open pack with large man and large cannon

There are also color variations which exist that range from dark brown to light brown to green

Elegant beauties all come with the closed pack backs.



Chinese proverbs come with blue backs.

There is also a pretty tough set which advertises Pirate Magnums.



and finally there are postcards which show Pirate cigarettes as well.

hanksta wrote:Steve,
Wanna sell the T215 Chase?

For a while I had a pretty good little collection of T215 (Red Cross) cards, I really love the back of that card.

Prolly not. It's one of my favorite front-back combos in my collection. It's at SGC now - I'm hoping for an equal cross to a 50, but I'm a little worried because there's a light surface wrinkle on back. Seems like it'd still be fine based on SGC's standards, but youneverknow. I might be more inclined to sell it outright if it comes back in the PSA holder, but either way, I'd probably rather trade it if I were going to get rid of it.

Thanks for posting those Pirate back scans, Richard. I think there are also a few variations with the "10 cigarettes" printing on the side of the cigarette package in the logo. I see two different font style variations on the ones you posted, and I've also seen another that has the printing reading in the opposite direction (from top to bottom whereas yours are bottom to top).

It's unusual to see so many slight variations on a back design. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the reason why?

Fisherboy7 wrote:Thanks for posting those Pirate back scans, Richard. I think there are also a few variations with the "10 cigarettes" printing on the side of the cigarette package in the logo. I see two different font style variations on the ones you posted, and I've also seen another that has the printing reading in the opposite direction (from top to bottom whereas yours are bottom to top).

It's unusual to see so many slight variations on a back design. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the reason why?

Ben, you are right. I think I may even have some that say "20 cigarettes"

As for why so many variations, it was to drive collectors crazy 100 years later!

Here are some more:



Then there is this one:



I find it odd that many cards were trimmed on the bottom. Just so happens that the non-sport pirate backs are shorter than a t206. I choose to trim mine a little at the bottom and with an angle at the top.

Who really knows where or how they came to be.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I had a question about the T215 Red Crosses.

I recall a big group of these sold in a Mastro or REA auction a year or two ago. It might have been in the same auction as the Pirate set (minus one card). Can someone post results/details of that sale?

Seems like there may have been a trickle down effect, as there have been more Red Crosses coming to market lately than ever before. Maybe that's part of the reason why this lot sold pretty low (I thought so at least).

Ben,
I was pretty surprised how low they went (about $80 each), I was going to bid $700 but forgot. I figured that they are worth about $150 each for the Type 1's and $125 each for the type 2's, but I think the back damage really kept them down in the end. If they were just beat up 1's I would think the lot would have sold for around $1000.

Still my favorite back next to T211 Red Suns.

Sean

Sean, I agree with your valuations on the cards from that low grade lot. Someone got a bargain for sure, although I suspect that they might be a tough sell if the winner wanted to break them up and flip them. The back damage is what really killed them, imo. Also with the recent outpouring of Red Crosses, most of the type collectors have their example. And with very few (if any!) people working on T215 sets, there doesn't seem to be the demand that there once was for these cards.

So there have been sizable T215 Red Cross and Pirate finds in recent times, which isn't to say they are easy to find by any means, but Victory cards seem to be as tough as ever. I'm still looking for my type example from that set.

I remember Steve picked up a nice lot a few years back with 3 or 4 T215's...I had my eyes set on one for a while, but poor condition ones were selling for almost $2k! But when most of those are 1 of 1 they're gonna cost yea.

Uf-da!

Here are mine:

T215 Oldring


T214 Joe Kelly. 1 of 1. I love this card.

Putting that Red Cross lot in the "lots" category didn't help either. I didn't even see the listing. Not sure how interested I would've been in the cards due to the back damage, but at that price, I would've rolled the dice that I could've broken up the group and made a little bit of money or maybe kept one for myself at next to nothing, or even less than nothing.

hey u guys did miss the boat! the t215 lot was broken up on the n54 bst and a few have sold in the $150+ range already. i guess the ebay seller could've done better piece by piece.

The person sharing a table with Gary Nuchereno at this year's National had a T214 Victory. Wonder if it's still available. (Sorry - didn't check the price.) A couple of years ago TIK & TIK had a group of T214s (maybe 8?) Doubt they still have any left, but you could try. Mine came from that group:

Ed Hans was sharing the table with Gary.

picked my Victory up from Steve --Smith Baltimore on the front (thank you Steve) --now I need a Virginia Extra with a Baltimore player anybody?

sorry for the lack of posting Jay-I will do better

you better you won't get the senior citizen discount rate

Jay