Finding Value in the Ty Cobb T205 Issue

 Triple SSS Sports Cards is a Detroit company with a nationwide presence at card shows and an inventory of graded rookies and stars spanning the major professional sports. Maintaining an extensive selection of vintage cards, the Triple SSS Sports Cards team is knowledgeable about baseball legends such as Ty Cobb.

A Sports Collectors’ Daily article brought focus to seemingly minor distinctions between Ty Cobb’s T205 and T206 cards that can have an outsized impact on value. The T206 is a classic tobacco card set, with single cards distributed as freebies with early 20th century packs of tobacco, similar to Cracker Jack toys. Cobb cards from the set in any kind of gradable condition fetch at least a couple thousand dollars. The 524-card T206 set, printed between 1909 and 1911, actually has four Cobb card variations. The T206 Cobb card with the most-desired green background variation starts at $5,000 or more.

With only 208 cards, the 1911 T205 set has fewer Cobbs. This relative rarity is reflected in the grading “pop” report. Although more than 1,000 of the green-background Cobb cards are graded by PSA (a sports card grading company that assigns numerical grades from 1 to 10, depending on card condition), fewer than 700 of the T205 have been PSA graded. This does not reflect in the price, with T205s selling in the moderate $2,000 range. Collectors, who may remember a few years back when T206 Cobbs were available for under $1,000, could potentially profit by seeking out this less-heralded classic Ty Cobb tobacco issue.

Card Traders Are Starting to Consider Lacrosse Cards

 Triple SSS Sports Cards specializes in selling pre-1975 investment quality sports trading cards. Established in 2000 by business partners Mike and Mark Skerbe, Triple SSS Sports Cards maintains a third-party-graded inventory of sports trading cards, such as basketball, baseball, football, and hockey, as well as non-sports trading cards.

The sports trading cards industry is re-shaping, considering card traders are becoming interested in other sports, such as lacrosse. It is noticeable that lacrosse is recognized as the oldest sport in the US and America’s fastest-growing sport in the last 15 years, according to a study by the NCAA. The previous two years have witnessed several important lacrosse events, which indicate that lacrosse is slowly becoming a popular spectator and participation sport.

The first and oldest lacrosse card was released in 1878 by the Huntley and Palmers Biscuit Company. The card, a part of a 12-card multi-sport set, is a colored lithographic depiction of a lacrosse game. Since then, there were no known releases of lacrosse cards until 2021, when a 55-card set featured professional lacrosse players from the 2021 season of the Premiere Lacrosse League (PLL). The set was called the 2021 Topps PLL First Edition Set.

In 2022, Topps issued two new sets of lacrosse cards: the Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse, the first women’s set released by Topps, and the PLL Holiday Edition. After the release of the three Topps lacrosse trading cards, the industry has observed a surging interest in lacrosse cards. Industry insiders say that lacrosse cards may be considered an emerging market in sports card trading.