For years, the notion of besmirching a vintage card with the ink of an autograph was considered sacrilegious.
But in recent years, sentiment has begun to shift. Collectors' preferences have changed, and many have decided autographed vintage cards provide a compelling proposition.
Most of the highest-profile examples of signed vintage cards at auction in recent years have come in the form of post-war cards such as the 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson rookie card.
Already an expensive collectible in any condition, with a combined population of 2,644 between PSA, BGS, SGC and CGC, the card’s top sale comes not from its highest condition grade (PSA 9, which last sold for $336,000 in 2018) but instead a card given an Authentic condition grade but an 8 autograph grade by PSA/DNA. That card, one of just four signed examples found in PSA’s census, fetched a record $468,000 when it sold in February 2022.
But even with the popularization of signed vintage now an accepted trend, sales of signed T206 cards — among the most widely collected baseball sets ever produced — have remained incredibly rare.
The reason for this is simple: There are astonishingly few signed examples of cards from the 524 cards included in “The Monster” (a number which accounts for some players, such as Ty Cobb, appearing multiple times in various positions).
PSA, which includes more than 285,000 graded examples from the set in its census, shows a mere 110 autographed copies.
One of the most famous of these originally came from the George Hitner collection, according to SignedT206, a website devoted to the history of signed T206 cards.
A 1909-11 T206 Sweet Caporal Ty Cobb Portrait Red Background, graded PSA 2 with a 7 autograph grade, sold for $192,000 in August 2020.
The highest price ever paid for a signed T206 card came in 2021, when a Cobb Portrait Green example, graded PSA/DNA 1, fetched $228,000.
As the SignedT206 website cites from Ron Keurajian’s “Baseball Hall of Fame Autographs: A Reference Guide:" “Cobb was such a giant of the game that even back when sports memorabilia was worthless, people were collecting Cobb material. All the way back in 1910 fans were saving items of the Georgia Peach. ... Today the handful of genuinely signed Cobb T-206 Cards that exist are true gems of the hobby.”
The majority of signed T206 cards remaining feature less glamorous names than Cobb. One subject whose autograph can be found on multiple examples of his T206 issues is Rube Marquard. Robert Edward Auctions is selling two such copies this week, each authenticated by Beckett and JSA.
Marquard, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and died at age 93 in 1980, is a unique example of a player from the set who both lived long enough to witness the maturation of card collecting and had a name that held a degree of significance that would attract collectors to ask for his autograph.
Bill James called Marquard "probably the worst starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame" in his 1994 book “Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?”
Marquard’s multiple signed T206 cards are by far the most frequently available at public auction, with one of his variations making up eight of the last 11 public sales, most recently a PSA 2/Auto 7 example, which sold for $2,040 at Heritage in December 2023.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.