The T206 Baseball Set, My Personal Collection, and Ty Cobb for SALE!

The T206 baseball card set is iconic.

Known as "The Monster", the set features 524 different player cards. The most notable card in the set is of course the legendary Honus Wagner card, which until last summer's 1952 SGC 9.5 Mickey Mantle sale was the most valuable baseball card in existence.

Here's a list of the top 10 cards ever sold:

What makes the T206 set additionally challenging is that not only are the players and portraits on the front of the cards collectable, but there are 16 different back variations.

Here is the full list of the different backs, which represent all of the different tobacco companies from the era, in order of most common to most rare:

• Piedmont (most common)

• Sweet Caporal

• Old Mill

• Polar Bear

• Sovereign

• El Principe De Gales

• American Beauty

• Cycle

• Tolstoi

• Hindu

• Broad Leaf

• Carolina Brights

• Lenox

• Drum

• Uzit

• Ty Cobb (very, very rare)

Here is a visual showing the number of each of these cards graded at PSA, to show the rarity by the data:

As you can see, most of these T206 cards were either Piedmont, or Sweet Cap.

Having a rare back will dramatically increase the value of the card, especially for the cards of Hall of Famers from the era.

Take a look at these two sales one month a part, of Hall of Famer Frank Baker's T206 Cards in American Beauty (rare) and Sweet Caporal (common)

You can see that the price on the American Beauty went for 2x cost as the more common Sweet Cap!

The Polar Bear Back

My favorite rare back from the T206 set might have to be the Polar Bear backs. What makes these cards so rare to find in nice condition is that the Polar bear Tobacco company was actually a loose-cut tobacco, meaning the cards that came with these tobacco packs were exposed directly to the scrap tobacco.

Here's what a package of Polar Bear Tobacco looked like back in the day!

(This sold at Auction in 2020 for $3,960 at Heritage!)

My personal collection of T206 Cards:

Walter Johnson - Portrait SGC 1.5 Piedmont

Bob Unglaub - Portrait PSA 4 Piedmont

John Titus - Portrait, Piedmont

(The only player in the entire T206 set featured with a mustache is John Titus!)

And last, but certainly not least....

Ty Cobb - Portrait - Polar Bear Back - SGC 2.5

(You can still see some of the tobacco staining on this card! So cool!)

Ty Cobb for Sale

This Ty Cobb card is without question the most valuable card in my collection and rarest card I have ever owned.

As I am packing up for the National, this card will be coming with me in hopes that I find a fellow collector who will appreciate it as much as I have.

If you are going to be in Chicago, and are interested in the card, I would be happy to meet you and make a deal.

The Card is also listed on my website and can be purchased here for $5,250:

Ty Cobb Polar Bear SGC 2.5

I will also be open to Trades on this card if the cards traded equal a value of $5,500. (Typically, Trade Value is at a slightly higher price to offset for the time and effort of getting the liquidity out of the cards being traded!)

Lastly, my most recent TikTok & YouTube video highlights this card, as well as Cobb's career, and you can see it here: VIDEO LINK