Soon after entering the hobby, every beginning sports collector learns of “The Monster,” the set of 524 tobacco cards known as T206 that was issued between 1909-1911.
As the novice collector becomes more knowledgeable of earlier cards, his research will inevitably lead him to an even more “monstrous” issue from two decades earlier. This, of course, is the Old Judge cards of 1886-1890. The Old Judge set is known to contain thousands of cards (no one is sure exactly how many) of hundreds of players from dozens of leagues, major and minor. But all are readily identifiable by the manufacturer, “Goodwin & Co. New York,” usually at the card’s bottom. Most of them are also labeled “Old Judge Cigarettes” or “Old Judge Cigarette Factory” somewhere on the card, although some of them instead advertise “Gypsy Queen Cigarettes.”
However, in neither case did any single tobacco manufacturer enjoy a monopoly. The T206 set was issued and distributed in packages of no less than 16 different brands. Further, other distinct sets were available at the same time from other makers, including Ramly, Obak, Turkey Red and Mecca. Likewise, in the last years of the 1880s, cards could be found with tobacco products other than Old Judge and Gypsy Queen, like Allen & Ginter, Kimball and Hess.
So a collector in the 1886-1890 or 1909-1911 time frame had more products than he could possibly find or afford.
What was the sports card market like in the two decades between those “Golden Ages?” The obvious answer is “pretty dismal.” The reason is equally obvious. In early 1890, Goodwin combined with four other giant tobacco firms to form the American Tobacco Company, or ATC. Smaller companies either sold out to ATC, went out
