1910-1912 SWEET CAPORAL CIGARETTES HIGH GRADE COMPLETE SET OF 204 BUTTONS WITH MANY HOF PLAYERS.
Item Description
7/8" complete set of 204 sepia-colored buttons issued by the American Tobacco Co. 153 of the smaller letters design and 51 of the large letters. All but five have their Sweet Caporal Cigarettes back papers, which come in various colors. Designated "P2" in the American Card Catalog by J. R. Burdick, these tobacco insert buttons include almost all the major stars of the era, with this series being closely related to the T205 Gold Borders tobacco cards of the same era with the majority of players sharing the same images on both the buttons and cards. After some sixty "commons" anyone collecting these soon realizes the rarity of many players, advanced collectors have indicated that a total of 19, including six of the large letter variety, are more scarce than the others. Some examples of Hall of Fame players appearing on both small and large letter buttons are: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, Chief Bender, Roger Bresnahan, Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown, Frank Chance, Fred Clarke, Eddie Collins, Hugh Duffy, Clark Griffith, Miller Huggins, Hugh Jennings, John McGraw, Joe Tinker, Bobby Wallace and Zach Wheat. HOFers who have only one letter size variety are: Frank "Home Run" Baker, Johnny Evers, Harry Hooper, Nap Lajoie, Rube Marquard, Ed Walsh, and Cy Young. The 16 teams with number of buttons per team are: Boston Red Sox 10, Boston Rustlers 5, Brooklyn Superbas 13, Chicago Cubs 19, Chicago White Sox 11, Cincinnati Reds 15, Cleveland Naps 8, Detroit Tigers 14, New York Giants 22, New York Yankees 11, Phila. Athletics 14, Phila. Phillies 13, Pittsburgh Pirates 16, St. Louis Browns 10, St. Louis Cardinals 12, Washington Senators 11. All buttons shown online. 12 buttons are PSA-graded and range between 5 EX and 8 NM-MT. Overall set shows mostly just typical lt. scattered traces of wear and age. By our button grading standards, set is mostly Fine to Exc., but with some lower and some higher.
In Hake's 56 years we have only ever offered two other complete sets, and both in recent years. The Paul Muchinsky set sold for $12,850 in our Feb. 2021. Our second set sold for $15,286 in our March 2023 auction. One of the all-time great baseball pin-back button issues.
