Tile Tuesday: Turkey Red

Today's tile is a bit smaller than usual and its also going to be one of the most boring.  Turkey Red's initial release was in 1910 and 1911.  The cards were obtained via coupon redemption, with the coupons found in three different cigarette brands.  The cards were much bigger than the other prominent cigarette cards at the time, the T206s.  Turkey Red cards measured 5 3/4" by 8".   A total of 100 cards were produced over the two year period.

Fast forward 95 years and baseball card companies are resurrecting all sorts of names from the past.  In 2005, Topps brought back the Turkey Red name.  Over the next six years, Topps release five different Turkey Red sets.  Some were stand-alone, others were inserts for the base set.  Though the design was similar to the original, the size of the cards was reduced to the standard 2½" by 3 ½" size.


There are a total of 53 Turkey Red Cubs.  Since there are so few, I made the tile with only six cards across.  That should give you a good look at each.  I'm a budget collector, so my 1910 cards are reprints, not the real deal.


Topps remained pretty faithful to the original 1910 design, which means you won't see much variety here.  About the only design change they made was doing to a wood-grained border, something they did twice.