Description

Here’s a true rarity in a hobby where modern collecting is dominated by “manufactured” scarcities.  This is a 1909-11 T206 card of pitcher Deacon Phillippe, who had an excellent career at the turn of the 20th century (won 20 games in 6 of his first 7 big league seasons).  The rarity and extreme value of this card is found on the back.

There were 17 different tobacco brands in the massive T206 set.  Piedmont and Sweet Caporal are the most common, accounting for approximately 80% of known cards today. This “Broad Leaf” back represents a miniscule .25% or less of total population of PSA graded T206s. That’s 1/4 of 1%.

There are 695 total Deacon Phillippe T206s (all backs) in the PSA database, and ONLY 3 have Broad Leaf backs.  So this is 1 of 3, total.  A PSA survey was done a few years back and there were 113,000 T206s in their database at that point.  Of that total only 228 were Broad Leaf.

So rare in this case is not hyperbole. This is an actual rarity, a true antiquity, highly prized by serious collectors.

Graded 2 GD (MC) by PSA.

*click on images to view hi-rez