1909-11 T206 Ty Cobb (Red Portrait)

One front, a rare back

The American Tobacco Company issued the T206 series between 1909 and 1911, slipping small lithographed cards of ballplayers into packs of its cigarettes and tobacco. The set, nicknamed 'The Monster' for its 524 subjects, was named T206 by the pioneering cataloger Jefferson Burdick. Ty Cobb appears in it four times, and the portrait against a red background is the most plentiful of the four.

What turns that common front into a great rarity is the back. Most T206 cards advertise brands such as Piedmont, Sweet Caporal or Old Mill. A tiny number of Cobb red portraits instead carry, in green ink, the words 'TY COBB - KING OF THE SMOKING TOBACCO WORLD.' No other player in the set is found with a Cobb back, and the front of these cards was given a slightly glossier coating.

Why so few exist is not fully documented. One auction description explains that the cards came only in tins of Ty Cobb brand smoking tobacco, a product with a fraction of the distribution of the major brands. Another description of the same variety calls the tin theory likely but 'only speculation.' The card is so obscure that Burdick's own catalog does not mention it, and it is still debated whether it belongs in the T206 set at all; the hobby's leading grading service follows the general view that it belongs.

The Georgia Peach at his peak

Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born December 18, 1886, in Narrows, Georgia, and debuted with the Detroit Tigers on August 30, 1905. By the time the T206 cards appeared he was the dominant hitter in the American League. He hit .350 in 1907, .324 in 1908, .377 in 1909, .382 in 1910 and .419 in 1911, leading the league in batting each time.

His 1909 season, the first year of the T206 issue, was one of the greatest of the era: 216 hits, 9 home runs, 107 RBI, 76 stolen bases and a .377 average, leading the majors in all of those categories. In 1911 he hit .419 with 248 hits, 127 RBI and 83 steals and won the league's Most Valuable Player award. The Tigers paid him $4,500 in 1909 and $9,000 in 1910.

Cobb was famous for aggressive, intimidating base running and was not well liked, even by teammates. As a businessman he grew rich investing in companies including Coca-Cola and General Motors. He played for Detroit through 1926, the last six seasons as player-manager, and finished with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1927 and 1928.

He retired with the highest career batting average in history. Standard references differ slightly on the totals: one lists 4,189 hits and a .366 average, another 4,191 and .367. In the first Hall of Fame election in 1936 he was named on 222 of 226 ballots, 98.2 percent. He died July 17, 1961, in Atlanta.

Cobb versus Wagner, 1909

The year the cards appeared, Cobb's Tigers won their third straight pennant and met Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series, October 8 to 16, 1909. It was the only time the two greatest players of the Deadball Era met in the Series. Pittsburgh won in seven games, and the 35-year-old Wagner hit .333 while the 22-year-old Cobb hit .231 with three doubles and five RBI.

Cobb later complained that Wagner was 'the only man in the game I can't scare.' A century later the two men are tied together again by their T206 cards: the Wagner is the most famous card in the hobby, and the Cobb with a Cobb back is scarcer still. A 2024 auction description put the Cobb back at fewer than thirty known against fifty to one hundred T206 Wagners; a 2021 description had said just over twenty Cobbs against fifty to seventy-five Wagners.

The Lucky 7 and other finds

For decades only about 15 Cobb-back cards were known. Then, in February 2016, a family clearing out their late great-grandparents' dilapidated house in a rural Southern town found seven of them face down at the bottom of a crumpled paper bag. They called Rick Snyder, a dealer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who at first doubted the cards could be real. Announced in March 2016, they raised the known population to about 22. PSA president Joe Orlando compared it to finding 30 to 40 new Wagners at once.

The seven, pedigreed 'The Lucky 7 Find' on their labels, graded from Fair 1.5 to VG-EX+ 4.5: one 1.5, four Good+ 2.5s, one 3.5 and one 4.5, the last two the finest known at the time. By May 2017 all seven had sold privately for a combined total of about $3 million. A few months after the first discovery, the family found an eighth card between two books in a dusty box; graded PSA 2, it was kept as a family keepsake.

PSA 2.5 copies from the find have since appeared at auction. One sold for $240,000 on February 25, 2017; another brought $228,000 in August 2017, its second sale since the find; and a Lucky 7 PSA 2.5 sold for $372,000 on August 22, 2021, as part of a run of every known back for the Cobb red portrait.

More copies keep surfacing. An SGC Good+ 2.5 that had never been graded or offered before sold for $432,000 on March 22, 2024. In December 2024 another SGC 2.5, bought at a flea market in the 1980s by a collector near Greensboro, North Carolina, and featured in his hometown paper in August 1990, sold for $337,704.

How to recognize one

The front of a Cobb-back card is the standard T206 red-background Cobb portrait in a white border, so the back is everything: the words 'TY COBB - KING OF THE SMOKING TOBACCO WORLD' printed in green. Registration on the front can be a problem on this card, and a slightly glossier front surface is part of its signature.

Every known copy is tracked, and almost all are in low grades with creasing and corner wear. PSA's condition census lists a VG-EX+ 4.5 at the top, followed by a 3.5 and a 3, then four Good+ 2.5s. In its 2024 offering, the SGC 2.5 copy was described as the only Good+ example graded by SGC, with one higher.

Because the front is identical to a common card, the back must be authenticated. The 2.5 grade of this entry sits in the middle of the known population, and recent public results at that grade range from $228,000 in 2017 to $432,000 in 2024.

The numbers

1909 season

156 G, 573 AB, 115 R, 216 H, 33 2B, 10 3B, 9 HR, 107 RBI, 76 SB, .377 BA, .431 OBP, .517 SLG. Led majors in H, HR, RBI, SB and BA. Age 22.

1909 World Series vs. Pittsburgh

7 G, 26 AB, 3 R, 6 H, 3 2B, 5 RBI, 2 SB, .231 BA. Tigers lost 4-3.

1910 season

140 G, 508 AB, 106 R, 194 H, 8 HR, 91 RBI, 65 SB, .382 BA

1911 season

146 G, 592 AB, 148 R, 248 H, 47 2B, 24 3B, 8 HR, 127 RBI, 83 SB, .419 BA. AL MVP.

1907-1908

.350 BA with 212 H and 119 RBI (1907); .324 BA with 188 H and 108 RBI (1908)

Salary

$4,500 (1909), $9,000 (1910)

Career (1905-1928)

24 seasons, 3,034 G, 4,189 H, 2,245 R, 897 SB, .366 BA in one standard reference (another gives 4,191 H, .367)

Hall of Fame

Inaugural class, 1936; 222 of 226 ballots (98.2%)

Timeline

1. Dec 18, 1886

   Ty Cobb is born in Narrows, Georgia.

2. Aug 30, 1905

   Cobb debuts with the Detroit Tigers.

3. 1909

   The American Tobacco Company begins issuing the T206 series; a small number of Cobb red portraits carry the Ty Cobb tobacco back.

4. Oct 16, 1909

   Cobb's Tigers lose Game 7 of the World Series to Wagner's Pirates.

5. 1911

   Cobb hits .419 and wins the American League MVP award; the T206 issue ends.

6. 1936

   Cobb is elected in the Hall of Fame's first class, on 222 of 226 ballots.

7. Jul 17, 1961

   Cobb dies in Atlanta.

8. Feb 2016

   A family finds seven Cobb-back cards in a paper bag in a Southern house: the Lucky 7.

9. Mar 2, 2016

   PSA announces the find; the known population rises from about 15 to about 22.

10. Feb 25, 2017

    A Lucky 7 PSA 2.5 sells at auction for $240,000.

11. May 2017

    All seven Lucky 7 cards are reported sold for a combined total of about $3 million.

12. Aug 2017

    A Lucky 7 PSA 2.5 sells at auction for $228,000, its second sale since the find.

13. Mar 2018

    PSA reports an eighth card from the same family, graded PSA 2.

14. Aug 22, 2021

    A Lucky 7 PSA 2.5 sells at auction for $372,000.

15. Mar 22, 2024

    An SGC 2.5 copy, fresh to the hobby, sells at auction for $432,000.

16. Dec 8, 2024

    A newly surfaced SGC 2.5 from North Carolina sells at auction for $337,704.

The world in 1909

• Feb 12, 1909

  The NAACP is founded.

• Feb 22, 1909

  The Great White Fleet returns to Hampton Roads after circling the globe.

• Mar 4, 1909

  William Howard Taft is sworn in as president.

• Mar 30, 1909

  The Queensboro Bridge opens in New York.

• Aug 12, 1909

  The Indianapolis Motor Speedway holds its first event.

• Oct 16, 1909

  The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series.

• Nov 11, 1909

  The U.S. Navy founds a base at Pearl Harbor.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1909-11 T206 Ty Cobb (Red Portrait) is number 13 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (3 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• No player other than Cobb appears in the T206 set with a Cobb back.
• The Lucky 7 cards were lying face down at the bottom of a torn paper bag in a dilapidated house.
• PSA's president said the Lucky 7 was like finding 30 to 40 new Honus Wagner cards at once.
• The same family later found an eighth Cobb-back card between two books in a dusty box and kept it.
• Jefferson Burdick, who gave the T206 set its name, never listed the Cobb back and likely died unaware it existed.
• One copy was bought at a flea market in the 1980s and featured in a North Carolina hometown newspaper in 1990 before being graded in 2024.
• In the 1909 World Series, Cobb hit .231 while Wagner hit .333.