Reviewing the 13 Hall of Famers in the T207 Set

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Pre-War Cards

Let’s take a look at the few Cooperstown inductees from the T207 release

The T207 set is known, in part, for missing a lot of big names. Unlike the T205 and T206 sets, there’s no Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, or Cy Young. And of course, there’s no Honus Wagner. A slew of other key figures are missing, too, but the set does include a total of 13 Hall of Famers.

Ironically, the Hall of Famers aren’t even the highlights of the set. In addition to the rookie card of banned Black Sox member Buck Weaver, the set is highlighted by a trio of tough cards of lesser players, including Irving Lewis, Louis Lowdermilk, and Ward Miller in the Broadleaf/Cycle subset. Other highlights that are often more valuable than several Hall of Famers are cards for Smoky Joe Wood and, to a lesser degree, Eddie Cicotte.

Still, the Hall of Famers do make up a significant value of the set — so let’s take a look at them.

The Lesser Guys

Eight of the 13 Hall of Famers fit into this category for me. The least desirable Hall of Famers are, in my mind, Chief Bender, Roger Bresnahan, Max Carey, Frank Chance, Rube Marquard, John McGraw, Joe Tinker, and Bobby Wallace.

Now, I should offer a bit of a caveat. These guys aren’t all exactly equal across the board. Chance and Tinker, for example, are a bit more than, say, Bresnahan and Marquard. Same goes for Wallace, whose card I seem to stumble upon less than the others — even if only slightly. Carey’s also can be a little higher as it is his rookie card.

But in general, these are the guys are really at the bottom of the Hall of Fame heap in T207. In low-grade condition, you can find some of them well under $100.

Second Tier

These are cards that are more sought after than the first group but not as valuable as the others. Only three fit into this group.

Cards in this tier are those for Hall of Famers Bill McKechnie, Harry Hooper, and Zack Wheat. Wheat is the biggest name and had the best career by a mile. But his card is more plentiful than those of McKechnie and Hooper, and it is actually the cheapest one.

Like Carey’s card in that first group, McKechnie’s is considered a rookie card by some. He technically has an earlier issue in the 1911 T5 Pinkerton Cabinets but those larger collectibles are photos and not really cards, per se. Rookie or not, his card is desirable since he has so few cards from his playing days and this one is a slightly tougher one to find in the set.

Wheat cards typically start in the $100-$150 range. Meanwhile, you can expect to pay at least $250-$300 for reasonable low-grade cards of McKechnie or Hooper.

King(s) of the Hill

The cards for Walter Johnson and Tris Speaker aren’t the most valuable cards in the entire set. But they are the top cards among the Hall of Famers by a considerable margin.

Johnson is the biggest name in the set. He’s the only in that ‘Big 4’ found in the other sets (Cobb, Mathewson, and Young, being the others) that appears here. But his card is not an appealing one aesthetically and almost certainly held back a little bit because of that.

Johnson’s is the bigger name but Speaker’s card is significantly rarer and usually more expensive. Neither is particularly cheap, though. Low-grade WaJo cards typically start around $400 these days and Speaker’s usually start slightly higher.