1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball Cards
Product Details
The C-series was designated for Canadian tobacco issues, mostly issued before World War I. Most of the sets in that series included featured hockey and lacrosse players as well as general subjects, but 1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball was the only major set devoted to baseball players. The players included in the set were from the International League, which had teams in both the United States and Canada. While the International League is still in existence today as a Triple-A league, 1912 was its first season under that name after the old Eastern League collapsed.
While 1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball is a Canadian-issued set, only two of the league's eight teams were located north of the border. Northern teams in the league were based in Montreal and Toronto. Buffalo, Newark, Baltimore, Jersey City, Providence and Rochester were the American squads.
The 1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball cards are a little more elaborately designed than other better-known tobacco sets of the era. Resembling a plaque, the black-and-white player picture is displayed in an oval shape framed by a wooden slab complete with graphic edges. The photo has a baseball bat designed to look as if it runs diagonally beneath the photo. A fielder's glove is at the top right and a baseball to the lower right. Below the photo is an oval-shaped nameplate with the player's last name.
Backs are very basic compared to other tobacco issues. The player's last name appears at the top, followed by a short write-up of his accomplishments. At the very bottom of the card are the words "Baseball Stars" and the card number. One of the biggest differences from almost every other tobacco card set is the lack of any advertising for the company that issued them. This lack of identity not only gives newer collectors trouble trying to figure out what they are but also has caused some collectors to ask whether they were actually issued by Imperial Tobacco.
The complete set has 90 cards. Two of the players ("Iron Joe" McGinnity and Joe Kelley) are Hall of Famers. Kelley has his name misspelled as "Kelly" and is sometimes confused with Jack Kelley, another player in the set. Chick Gandil would eventually become involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal and is widely collected because of that. Other notables include Luther "Dummy" Taylor and Jack Dunn, who was instrumental in bringing Babe Ruth to Baltimore as a rookie a couple years later. William O'Hara and Ray Demmitt are remembered for their difficult T206 cards.
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Key Cards
Key 1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball Cards
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#77 Joe McGinnity
#27 Joe Kelley
#65 Chick Gandil
#1 William O'Hara
#90 Ed Curtis
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Set Checklist
1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco Baseball Cards Set Checklist
2 James McGinley
3 Frenchy LeClaire
4 John White
5 James Murray
6 Joe Ward
7 Whitey Alperman
8 Natty Nattress
9 Fred Sline
10 Royal Rock
11 Ray Demmitt
12 Butch Schmidt
13 Sam Frock
14 Fred Burchell
15 Jack Kelley
16 Frank Barberich
17 Frank Corridon
18 Doc Adkins
19 Jack Dunn
20 James Walsh
21 Charles Handford
22 Dick Rudolph
23 Curt Elston
24 Carl Sitton
25 Charlie French
26 John Ganzel
27 Joe Kelley
28 Benny Meyers
29 George Schirm
30 William Purtell
31 Bayard Sharpe
32 Tony Smith
33 John Lush
34 William Collins
35 John Phelan
36 Edward Phelps
37 Rube Vickers
38 Cy Seymour
39 Shadow Carroll
40 Jake Gettman
41 Luther Taylor
42 Walter Justis
43 Robert Fisher
44 Fred Parent
45 James Dygert
47 Fred Mitchell
48 Heinie Batch
49 Michael Corcoran
50 Edward Doescher
51 George H. Wheeler
52 Elijah Jones
53 Frank Truesdale
54 Fred Beebe
55 Louis Brockett
56 Robert G. Wells
57 Lew McAllister
58 Ralph Stroud
59 Vernon Manser
60 James S. Holmes
61 Rube Dessau
62 Fred Jacklitsch
63 Stanley Graham
64 Noah Henline
65 Chick Gandil
66 Tom Hughes
67 Joseph Delehanty
68 George Pierce
69 Bob Gaunt
70 Edward Fitzpatrick
71 Wyatt Lee
72 Rube Kissinger
73 William Malarkey
74 William Byers
75 George Simmons
76 Daniel Moeller
77 Joseph McGinnity
78 Jack Hardy
79 Bob Holmes
80 William Baxter
81 Chester Spencer
82 Bradley Kocher
83 Al Shaw
84 Joseph Yeager
85 Tony Carlo
86 William Abstein
87 Tim Jordan
88 Dick Breen
89 Lew McCarty
90 Harry Curtis
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Pete Fox
Hi, Chris … I have 4 Imperial Tobacco cards, 3 – Golf … and 1 – Boxing … Can you give me a good source to obtain an approximate value?