1910-12 T218 Champions Set

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	T218 Champions
Year	1910-12
Size	2 1/2″ x 2 7/8″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco
Number in Set	153

1910-12 T218 Champions Overview

This large issue is one of the more popular multi-sport sets of the pre-war era. While it doesn’t include any cards featuring the big four American sports, several sports are included, such as boxing, golf, and track and field. Some rarer sports are seen in the set as well, including bowling, billiards, and aviation. Here’s a look at the potential rarity for all of the sports in the set.

While boxing and track and field dominate the checklist, the set is a haven for collectors seeking billiards cards. Nearly 10% of the set is represented by that sport with a total of 15 billiards cards.

The cards look different than most of the early 1900s tobacco issues. Instead of a long, narrow design, these cards are nearly square in shape and look like the gum card issues of the 1930s.

The cards have color lithographic pictures of athletes on the fronts along with their name printed in small capital letters. And, as shown here, they were printed both horizontally and vertically. Some athletes are featured in different poses on more than one card.

While the set is considered one large 153-card release, it is often believed to have been broken out into three sub series with each consisting of about 50 cards. Per the backs of the cards (backs state that Series #2 is for cards 51-00), the breakdown between the three subsets should be:

Series 1 (Cards No. 1-50)
Series 2 (Cards No. 51-100)
Series 3 (Cards No. 101-153)

Despite that, some theories suggest the checklists for those three subsets are slightly off from that.

Backs of the cards indicate they were issued with packages of Hassan and Mecca tobacco cards. However, while those are the two most common backs found on the cards, a few have a far less common tobacco brand, Tolstoi. The Tolstoi-backed cards are easily the most difficult to find.

In general, the boxers from this series are generally the most desirable and the two Jack Johnson cards are usually the most expensive. His legendary opponent in a famous 1910 fight, James Jeffries, is also featured twice in the set. Still, the set contains an odd assortment of characters and cards featuring many of the ‘lesser’ sports are among the more desirable, too. As I wrote here, the card of noted pedestrian/walker Edward Payson Weston is one of the more sought after cards in the set.

Finally, while a standard set of these cards include a total of 153, given that cards are found with different backs, a master set is significantly larger.

Errors

The set, like many pre-war issues, has some errors in it that were later corrected.

Swimmer C.J. Trubenbach has an error with his name spelled as Trudenbach on some cards
Hammer thrower Simon Gillis has two errors — one with his name misspelled on the front (Gilles) and a second with it misspelled on the front and back
Robert Cloughen has his name misspelled on some backs as Cloughan
Joe Jeannette has his name misspelled as ‘Jeanette’ on some backs

The Jeannette error, in particular, is notable for a couple of reasons. First, he was a Hall of Fame boxer and second, it is one that was only recently discovered by a collector and was first mentioned here on this site.

Baseball

One of the reasons the T218 Champions set is not as popular as some other multi-sport issues is because it does not include baseball players. But while the set is technically missing professional baseball players, it does, in a way include athletes that played baseball on a big stage.

Three track and field athletes featured in the set, Platt Adams, Frank Irons, and Abel Kiviat hold some baseball ties. Each played for Team USA in a short tournament in the 1912 Olympics that included the Americans facing Sweden (a second game included only U.S. players with one team representing Finland).

While the athletes in the set are featured as track and field stars, playing baseball in the Olympics qualifies them as baseball subjects to a small degree.

Here’s more on the baseball ties in the set.

Dating of the Set

The set is generally listed as a 1910 issue as many of the dates mentioned on the back reflect that fact. I have also seen it as a 1910-11 issue. However, this article, among other sources, cite it is as a 1910-12 set.

It would not appear to be a 1910 only set. For example, one of the biographies, that of champion billiards player Alfredo de Oro, cites a championship he won in November 2010. I suppose the set could have been printed in 1910 but that reference would indicate that it would have had to have been printed very shortly after that.

Jefferson Burdick did not seem clear on the date of production as he did not provide a year for it in the American Card Catalog. Because of the variance in years, I have listed it as a 1910-12 issue here.