Red Cross Tobacco is one of those pre-war brands you hardly ever see on baseball cards.
The logo appears on a few different releases, but any card with that Red Cross back is tough to track down.
A recent discovery has brought them back into the conversation.
What Makes T215 Interesting
The T215 Red Cross set was listed in the old American Card Catalog as a Baseball Series.
The cards use the same images and white borders seen on the famous T206 and the T213 Coupon sets.
Type 1 cards use brown ink for the player name.
Type 2 uses blue. Both versions share the same bold red back that advertises Red Cross Tobacco.
The checklist claims there were 100 subjects.
Fewer have actually been confirmed, which has collectors wondering if some players were never printed or if they just haven’t surfaced yet.
Type 1 cards are believed to be from 1910 to 1912. Type 2 likely followed from 1912 to 1913.
The New Find
In September, a collector contacted Just Collect for help selling his father’s cards.
Most of the collection was post-war sets, but hidden in the mix were 18 T215 Red Cross cards.
Sixteen of those cards were purchased by Just Collect.
That alone is big news. Even low-grade commons can hit close to a thousand dollars.
This group had Hall of Famers and stars, including:
- Zack Wheat
- Mordecai Three Finger Brown
- Roger Bresnahan
- Larry Doyle
There were also names like Al Bridwell, Russ Ford, Fred Merkle and others. All but one card were Type 1.
What makes the story more interesting is where the cards came from.
The original owner grew up in Louisiana, which lines up with the belief that many Red Cross cards were distributed there.
Values for these new finds could land anywhere from fifteen hundred to several thousand depending on the player and condition.
What Happens Next
Just Collect plans to sell the cards, though the timeline is still undecided.
Even so, the discovery has sparked new interest in one of the rarest early tobacco issues in the hobby.
If anything else surfaces, the market will be watching.
