Pinpointing the birth of baseball card collecting is a subjective pursuit.
The obvious route is to look for the very first baseball card ever produced, which, depending on your definition, might be the 1869 Peck & Snyder.
But if accounting for significance and staying power, the better answer is the 1909-11 T206 set, otherwise known as “The Monster,” which claims the title of the true originator of card collecting as we know it today.
Produced as inserts within cigarette packs distributed by the American Tobacco Company, the 524-card set is undoubtedly the most famous and likely the most collected set in history. It famously featuring the legendary T206 Honus Wagner card, as well as coveted and expensive issues of Ty Cobb, the ultra-rare Eddie Plank, and much more.
As iconic as this set has become, never before has an original carton of Piedmont Cigarettes, one of the most common brands from the era of the set, been seen before.
Until now.
A newly discovered carton, including 13 original T206-era packs (seven unopened), sold at Robert Edward Auctions Sunday night.
The historic find was split into eight different lots, including one featuring solely the empty outer carton itself, a lot of six packs, and six individual lots of one pack each. Collectively, the lots garnered $218,400.
The consignor is kept the last one.
While the collecting world has seen unopened T206 packs before, the magnitude of this discovery is unprecedented.
The find was first brought to the attention of the consignor, an antique enthusiast, in the last few months, having recently been found in an old house in Virginia. The consignor wasn't sure exactly how special the carton was at first glance.
It wasn’t until diving into the history of the set, using research and expertise pioneered by hobbyists, ephemera collectors and even U.S. tax law as guide posts, that consignor was able to discern the true meaning.
“When he started going down the path of doing his own research, he said, ‘Wow, this might be T206 era,’” REA president Brian Dwyer told cllct. “And then the combination of furthering his own research, talking to us, talking to other people in the hobby, that's when he realized that, ‘Hey, I've got the holy grail.’”
That research is akin to the work of cold-case investigators. In the past, REA has turned away multiple unopened packs purporting to be from the era, because of conflicting evidence, including some graded by third-party authenticators.
REA has sold only one example of an unopened cigarette pack dated to the era, possibly containing a T206 card, fetching nearly $10,000 in 2021.
So, when the auction house first received word of this carton, it was admittedly skeptical.
But after looking at details like tax stamps, which, due to the changing of various U.S. labeling laws for tobacco, can help date packs, REA was able to determine the carton dated back to around 1910.
The carton was later repurposed to market Fatima Cigarette packs, with two labels affixed to the carton’s top lid and side panel — making the effort that much harder.
As T206 packs held no guarantee of yielding a baseball card, REA issues the following warning to potential collectors in its lot description: “We should clarify that there is absolutely no guarantee that there is, in fact, a T206 inside this unopened Piedmont pack. There is really no way for us to know with certainty. It is even possible the pack includes a non-sport card.”
Additionally, since research was able to place its origins to "Factory 25, Dist. VA.," which would have been nearby the home in which it was discovered, REA is not marketing the unopened packs as possible sources of Honus Wagner cards, but instead mentioning the possibility of a Ty Cobb or Eddie Plank card, both of which match up to the timing and geographic origins of the carton.
The record sale for a T206 Eddie Plank card is $690,000. REA also happens to have an SGC 3 copy of a T206 Plank coming up in the same auction.
The magnitude of the discovery is certainly not lost on Dwyer, who noted his mind would have been blown had the carton itself, without any of the unopened packs, showed up for consignment.
“Think about if you found a box of Goudey cards or a box of 1952 Topps,” Dwyer said. “I mean, it is one of the most widely collected, most recognizable sets in our industry, and you've got the opportunity to get right back to square one.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.