During my seven week hiatus I acquired only two cards, and both of them are almost 100 years old. The first I’ll discuss is this 1909-11 T206 Piedmont Nap Lajoie. Widely considered one of the greatest players of all time, Lajoie played nearly 2,500 career games over 21 years, carried a career average of .338 and collected more than 3,200 hits. He also drove in 1,599 runs while slugging only 84 total homers.

I caught this card on eBay about six weeks ago while reading the first half of “Cobb.” It didn’t cost me much to add this to my collection, a mere $60 (the price of a Billy Butler Bowman Chrome auto rookie) was all it took to add this century-old classic to by display case. And while the condition leaves much to be desired, the mere presence of this card adds a new dimension to my collection, and has made me rethink my focus again.

If you look at the header for this page, you’ll notice a reference to the “RAM Collection.” There was a time where I felt it important to obtain an autograph, memorabilia and rookie card for most notable players in the history of the game. But truth be told I’ve spent many dollars on modern cards without building a solid foundation of real legends. In other words the game of baseball did not begin in the 1940s or 1950s therefore by “best” card cannot be a Willie Mays rookie (1951 Bowman).

Instead of hunting down autographs of current stars or up-and-coming youngsters, I think it’d be in my best interest to track down true vintage cards, like this Lajoie, which have history. I mean we’ll never see cards of pro ball players inserted into packs of cigarettes ever again. Kind of interesting, no?

This entry was posted on October 3, 2008 at 8:54 am and is filed under Card of the Day with tags baseball cards, cigarette cards, hobby, Lajoie, Nap Lajoie, PSA, T 206, t206, taboo, tobacco, tobacco cards, vintage baseball cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.