A Look Through the Various Types of Images Found in the T206 Set

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Pre-War Cards

The T206 set covers just about everything in terms of its images

The popular T206 set is well known for its great artistry. But while the quality of the artwork is outstanding, the different types of images in it are notable, too.

Here’s a look at the different varieties of pictures you’ll find in it.

Portraits

As I wrote earlier, for some collectors, portraits are king. That doesn’t go for all collectors, obviously, but for players with multiple T206 cards including a portrait, it’s the portrait cards that generally sell for the most.

Many of the cards in the set are portraits with many more than 100 included. For players with more than one card, many were given a portrait. Many images of famous photographer Carl Horner were used to create the artwork for the portraits (and other cards).

The most famous of the portrait cards are probably Ty Cobb’s. Cobb actually has two of them and he has four cards overall. The idea of portrait supremacy is sort of seen in his cards.

His green background portrait card is by far the most expensive of his four and, even though his red background portrait is easily the most common it generally sells for about as much as his action shots.

Portraits of all players in the set are desirable but the really expensive ones are for the cards featuring Hall of Famers. And of course, no card is more famous or more expensive than the Honus Wagner T206 portrait.

Batting Cards

The T206 set also features a healthy number of action poses and among those are cards depicting players hitting.

The batting cards do not typically look like the players shown are hitting in actual games. These are mostly shots of players on the sideline or warming up.

One great thing about the batting cards is the old style bats used and also the excessive choking up that players show. Those vintage looks are part of what make the batting cards some of the best in the set.

There’s a bit of variation here, too. Some players are in a pose ready to hit the ball, like Whitey Alpermanm is here. And others are shown after swinging, like Ed Abbaticchio is here.

Fielding

Then there are obviously fielding poses.

Similar to the batting images, a lot of these look like they’re done for sure. Many of these pictures don’t seem to depict players in actual game action. Some certainly do, though.

Beals Becker is a player that is depicted only fielding and both look like pretty good ‘In Action’ shots. One card shows him catching a ball and another depicts him fielding a grounder.

Others in the set, are a bit less active.

The thing that sticks out in the fielding poses, obviously, are the gloves. You’ll see all sorts of gloves being used and one for Bill Burns that looks like it is backwards actually may not have been.

Pitching

Can’t have a baseball game without pitching and, fortunately, there’s plenty of that in the T206 set.

My favorite pitching card is probably the one of Christy Mathewson with the black cap. Then again, that’s probably because that’s my favorite T206 card altogether. There are plenty of other great pitching cards that actually show a bit more action than that one. The legendary Cy Young has two of those.

One one card, Young is facing towards the right in a follow through motion. On a second, he’s facing front while appearing to lean back and begin a throwing motion. The card on the left is sort of a sloppily done one without much definition but the other one gives a much better look at Young.

Horizontals

The six horizontal cards found in the set are another style of image. These, feature some of the things mentioned above but have a horizontal layout as opposed to the more common vertical shot.

As I wrote recently, Barney Pelty’s horizontal card (shown here) is the key to that subset. But that’s less about his career and more about the fact that his card was at one time pretty tough to find.

A fun fact about the horizontals is that five of the six cards have throwing pictures. Only one, Harry Pattee, shows a batter.

Catching

And, of course, there are some really great looking cards of catchers wearing old gear as well.

Catcher cards are not quite as common as the others. In fact, you could say that the set could definitely use a few more images of players in this position. But there’s still a good bit here.

One of these cards is for Larry McLean. If you just glanced at it, you might be inclined to think that this was a card for an umpire. But that’s definitely a catcher under there.

One of the more interesting cards is for a player named Jim Stephens. Stephens was a catcher but is not in full gear. However, his card clearly identifies him as a catcher as he’s wearing a mitt that appears to be twice as big as his head.

Yep, also definitely a catcher.

Other

In addition to all of these, you’ll find a few other types of pictures in the set.

One of the more interesting ones is a card of Hal Chase (the player featured the most in the set) with a trophy called, “The Loving Cup.” The card has an interesting background to it.

And while they aren’t too common, there are some cards featuring players just taking it easy, including one for Mike Donlin. Donlin has both a batting and a fielding card. But he also has a third where he is sitting, possibly in a dugout.

The T206 set is great for all sorts of reasons and the variety of the images them is certainly one of those.