The SABR Baseball Cards Committee hosted a session with the author of One Splendid Season to discuss key details of 1912’s T202 Triplefolder set, including its photographic techniques, varied player selections, and toughest cards to find today. His book on this set and the 1912 season is a standout example of scholarship and storytelling within our hobby.
Here is the recording of the session.
References mentioned include Phil’s appearance on My Baseball History (Season 5, episode 3) and Andrew Aronstein’s gallery of Paul Thompson photos used on T-cards.
Phil asked for help answering two hobby questions related to this set!
- Why did Burdick’s American Card Catalog (ACC) assign classification numbers as it did? While we know T202’s “T” stands for Tobacco, why use T202 for these 1912 Hassan Triplefolders, a set released after famous siblings like T205 and T206?
- The ACC’s 1960 edition correctly tallied T202 (76 center panels and 144 end panels), without providing further checklist details. How far back can we trace their hobby checklist? Who chose to list T202 cards by center panel in alphabetical order and designate letters for different end panel combinations of the same center panel? (Burdick himself? Another early collector more focused on baseball?)
