All sportscard singles ship for one low rate, no matter how many items you buy!

About The Set:
The 1911 T205 Gold Border tobacco set is one of the most sought after and collected baseball card sets produced prior to 1950.  The cards were produced by multiple tobacco brands, and used as a marketing scheme to sell cigarettes and tobacco products.  Each individual tobacco company printed their name/insignia on the back of the card.  The rarer backs command a higher value, depending on the rarity of the card/brands printed on the back. 

T205

The tobacco card set known as T205 was issued in 1911 in cigarette and loose tobacco packs through 11 different brands owned by the American Tobacco Company. It is a landmark set in the history of baseball card collecting.

History

The name T205 refers to the catalog designation assigned by Jefferson Burdick in his book The American Card Catalog. It is also known informally as the "Gold Borders" set due to the distinctive gold borders surrounding the lithographs on each card.

The T205 set consists of 220 cards, which includes many variations and short prints. The set consists of three different leagues: the American, National, and Minor Leaguers. The American League can be identified by the baseball diamond surrounding the portrait of the player sporting their team logo near the top. The National League displays a simple colored background with the first-ever use of a facsimile autograph of the player. Minor Leaguers are made up of 12 cards printed with noticeably different and more detailed borders. The cards measure 1-7/16" x 2-5/8" which is considered by many collectors to be the standard tobacco card size.

The T205 set is one of the most popular sets of the tobacco/pre-war era, second only to T206. The large number of variations, number of stars, and colorful artwork give it enormous appeal to collectors. There are 27 Baseball Hall of Fame members in the set (in alphabetical order): Home Run Baker, Chief Bender, Roger Bresnahan, Mordecai Brown, Frank Chance, Fred Clarke, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Hugh Duffy, Johnny Evers, Clark Griffith, Miller Huggins, Hughie Jennings, Walter Johnson, Addie Joss, Rube Marquard, Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, Tris Speaker, Joe Tinker, Bobby Wallace, Zack Wheat, Cy Young.

With a little effort the set can be completed minus the most difficult card to obtain, the elusive Hoblitzell no stats.

Tobacco Brands that Produced T205 Cards

T205 cards were issued with 17 different backs, representing the 11 different brands of cigarettes/tobacco with which the cards were issued. Due to the same card having different backs, there are actually far more than 220 "different" T205 cards.

The 17 backs are:

• American Beauty Black
• American Beauty Green
• Broad Leaf Black
• Broad Leaf Green
• Cycle
• Drum
• Hassan Factory 30
• Hassan Factory 649
• Hindu
• Honest Long Cut
• Piedmont Factory 25
• Piedmont Factory 42
• Polar Bear
• Sovereign
• Sweet Caporal Factory 25 Black
• Sweet Caporal Factory 42 Black
• Sweet Caporal Red

New Error Discovered:

The sports memorabilia community recently discovered an uncorrected error on Cycle brand cards of Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson. While his pitching record should (and typically does) read 37-11, on Cycle cards it is listed as 37-1. While it is difficult to determine rarity and value due to a lack of market data, the card is expected to be more common and less expensive than the Hoblitzell no-stats variation.

Chief Bender

Charles Albert "Chief" Bender (May 5, 1884^{[a 1]} – May 22, 1954) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball during the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1911, Bender tied a record by pitching three complete games in a single World Series. He finished his career with a win-loss record of 212-127, for a .625 winning percentage and a career 2.46 earned run average (ERA). He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.

Early life

Bender was born in Crow Wing County, Minnesota as a member of the Ojibwe tribe. Like other players of American Indian heritage, he was given the nickname of "Chief". He graduated from Carlisle Indian Industrial School and attended Dickinson College.

Baseball career

In 1905 Bender went 18-11 with 2.83 ERA, helping the A's win the AL pennant, but they lost the World Series in five games to the New York Giants. Bender went 1-1, 1.06 ERA in the series, pitching a 4-hit, 3-0 complete game shutout in game 2, striking out 9, and again went the distance in game 5, giving up just two earned runs in eight innings and losing 2-0 to Christy Mathewson.

After solid seasons in 1906 (15-10, 2.53), 1907 (16-8, 2.05), 1908 (8-9 despite a 1.75 ERA) and 1909 (18-8, 1.66), he led the Athletics to the AL pennant in 1910 as Philadelphia went 102-48, 14 1/2 games ahead of the second-place New York Yankees. Bender led the AL in winning % at .821, going 23-5 with a 1.58 ERA. He went 1-1 with 1.93 ERA in the World Series as the A's beat, in five games, the Chicago Cubs, who had gone 104-50 in the regular season. Bender pitched a complete-game three-hitter in the opener, striking out 8 and giving up only one unearned run. He lost game 4 of the series in another complete game effort, 4-3 in 10 innings. Bender pitched all 9 2/3 innings for the Athletics, striking out 6.

In 1913 he led the AL in winning % again at .773 going 17-5 with a 2.16 ERA as the A's won their second consecutive AL pennant, going 101-50 and finishing 13 1/2 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers. In a rematch of the 1905 World Series, the Athletics got their revenge, defeating the New York Giants and becoming the first American League to win back-to-back World Series (the Chicago Cubs from the NL had won back-to-back titles in 1907 and 1908). After losing the opener 2-1 to Christy Mathewson, though pitching a complete game, giving up just 5 hits and 2 runs (1 earned run) and striking out 11, he returned in game 4, beating the Giants 4-2 on a complete game 7-hitter, and closed out the Series in game 6 with a 13-2 A's victory. Bender again went the distance (his 3rd complete game of the series), a 4-hit performance which he gave up no earned runs (the two Giants runs were unearned). He went 2-1, with 1.04 ERA and 3 complete games in the series.

In 1912 Bender was 13-8 with a 2.74 ERA. He did not start for nearly 40 games late in the year and was suspended by the A's in September for alcohol abuse. His next contract had a clause saying he had to abstain from drinking to earn his full salary. In 1913 he went 21-10 with a 2.21 ERA, helping the A's win their third AL pennant in four years. They would also make it three World Series titles in four years by defeating the Giants in five games. Bender went 2-0 in the series with complete-game victories in games 1 and 4.

He led the AL in winning % for the third time in 1914 at .850 going 17-3 with a 2.26 ERA, and the A's would win their 4th AL pennant in 5 years. But the Philadelphia would be swept by the underdog Boston Braves, with Bender losing game one 7-1 and giving up 6 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. It was the only World Series game he failed to finish after completing his previous nine starts in the fall classic.

When the upstart Federal League offered him a significant increase in salary, Mack knew he couldn't hope to match it and released him. However, Bender went 4-16 for the Terrapins, and later regretted leaving Philadelphia. After two years with the Phillies, he left baseball in 1918 to work in the shipyards during World War I.

He pitched in the minors in 1919 and became a player-manager in the minors for many seasons. He came back to the majors as a coach for the Chicago White Sox (1925–26) and even made a cameo appearance on the mound in 1925. In 1931 he coached for the Giants and the next year managed the Yankee affiliate in the Central League. He then returned to the Athletics where he worked the rest of his life as a scout, minor league manager, and coach.

Over his career, his win-loss record was 212-127, for a .625 winning percentage (a category in which he led the American League in three seasons) and a career 2.46 ERA. His talent was even more noticeable in the high-pressure environment of the World Series; in five trips to the championship series, he managed six wins and a 2.44 ERA, completing 9 of the 10 games he started, putting him 2nd in World Series history behind Christy Mathewson. In the 1911 Series, he pitched three complete games to tie Christy Mathewson's record of three complete games in a World Series. He also threw a no-hitter on May 12, 1910 beating the Cleveland Indians 4-0.

Bender was well liked by his fellow players. Longtime roommate and fellow pitcher Rube Bressler called him "one of the kindest and finest men who ever lived."^[1] Ty Cobb called him the most intelligent pitcher he ever faced.^{[citation needed]} Bender was also known as one of the best sign-stealers of his time; Mack often put this skill to use by occasionally using him as the third-base coach on days he wasn't scheduled to pitch.^{[citation needed]}

Bender was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1953, less than one year before his death. In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.

Slider

The innovator of the slider is debated, but some credit Bender as the first to use the slider, then called a "nickel curve", in the 1910s.^[2] Bender used his slider to help him achieve a no-hitter and win 212 games.^[3]