Ever since I’ve gotten back into collecting, I’ve always wanted to own a few cards from the big, old sets. I’ve gotten a handful of cards from some of the big sets of the ’30’s and ’40’s, but I’ve been stymied so far in my quest to own a T205 and a T206.

I like both of those sets a lot, but for whatever reasons, I think I’m more drawn to the simplicity of the T206. In reality, I would jump at any one of these cards that ended up being in my price range (cheap), but I decided to do a little research to maybe pin down a few cards that I would prefer to own, if I had a choice.

I’ve lived my entire life in New Jersey, and I really love my home state. For most of my life I lived in the Jersey City area, and I’ve always been very interested in local history. I think it has to do with the fact that my family has lived in Jersey City for close to 150 years. I guess that makes you have a connection to a city.

Anyway, as I was looking into the T206 set, I saw that there are 4 cards from a Jersey City team, as well as 3 from a Newark team. Those seemed like perfect candidates for cards I would like to get my hands on.

One drawback to the T206 set, is that they really don’t provide much information about the players depicted, other than their last name, and the city they played in. I know that neither Newark or Jersey City ever had a major league team, so I at least knew that these represented minor leaguers.

I started poking around and found out that teams in question were the Newark Indians and the Jersey City Skeeters, both of the Single A Eastern League. The Newark team is cool, plus they had Ironman Joe McGinnity, but I don’t really have that much of a personal connection to Newark, though.

When I read about the Jersey City team, however, my little baseball card radar started bugging out. The Jersey City Skeeters!?!? How awesome is that name? Plus, since there’s only 4 Jersey City players in the T206 set, that would totally be do-able to try and get them all.

At the For Love of the Cards blog, Andy H. shows off a most excellent cabinet card of the Skeeters training in the caribbean. I must say, I don’t remember being this jealous over a card before.

Also, apparently, there is a revival of the Skeeters as part of the Vintage Base Ball Association. They have a most interesting history of the club on their site.

Here we go folks, another baseball card quest.

Tags: Jersey City Skeeters, Newark Indians, T205, T206
Filed Under: Cards I Would Like to Own by slangon
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