The T212 Obak set, issued from 1909 to 1911, includes 426 cards of Pacific Coast League and Northwestern League subjects.
- The 1909 series, known as Type 1, includes 76 subjects.
- The 1910 and 1911 series, known as Type 2 and Type 3 respectively, include 175 subjects each.
Not surprisingly, some subjects have cards in more than one series. For example, here is Jesse Stovall (spelled three different ways!) in each of the three series.
Conversely, there are various subjects who appear in only a single series. Some of the set’s most coveted cards fall into this category, among them Chick Gandil (1909), Ten Million (1911), and Buck Weaver (1911).
Finally, there are subjects who appear in exactly two of the series. One of many examples is George Cutshaw, who appears in both the 1910 and 1911 series, though one might not know the difference without flipping his cards over.
Here is, perhaps for the first time, an accounting of all such combinations.
In this diagram, for example, we see that Cutshaw is one of 64 subjects appearing in (only) the final two series, just as we see Jess Stovall is one of 32 subjects who appeared in all three series. Finally, adding the individual numbers, we see that the set included 271 different subjects in all.
Looking at the data another way (by series rather than subject), it is possible to get a sense of the overall set’s evolution. For example, here is a year-by-year chronology based on the numbers.
- 1909 – Introduction of 76 new subjects
- 1910 – Introduction of 119 new subjects and reuse of 56 subjects from 1909
- 1911 – Introduction of 76 new subjects and reuse of 99 subjects from prior years
For those interested in examining all of this is far greater detail, I’m making my Google Sheet available. It’s largely self-explanatory, with the added note that boldface type is used when a subject changes teams. The 1911 entry for Roy Akin shows an example of this.
For users skilled in sorting or filtering the data, there are plenty of fun things to look at. For example, here is where the (baseball card) members of the 1911 Portland Pippins (NWL) came from. Of the ten, three came over from the Portland Beavers (PCL), two came from the San Francisco Seals (PCL), one came from the Vernon Tigers (PCL), and four were “rookies.”
The sheet also aids in building team checklists, particularly for collectors who are satisfied with just a single card (any series) of a subject appearing multiple years. For example, here are the 27 subjects who have at least one Los Angeles Angels card.
Finally, the sheet makes it easy to identify the subjects corresponding to each region of the Venn diagram. For example, here are the 24 subjects who had cards in 1909 and 1910 but not 1911.
If deep dives into the T212 checklist are your thing, I suspect you’ll have a lot of fun with the Google sheet. Let me know in the Comments if you use it to do something cool, or (God forbid!) find an error.
