T204 Ramly Cigarettes cards of 1909 feature a beautiful black-and-white
portrait of each player encircled in an ornate border with
the player's name, position, and team affiliation printed at the bottom.
The cards, which are embossed and highlighted with gold ink, are extremely condition-sensitive because they are
printed on flimsy paper. The gold borders are also very
susceptible to chipping, as is the case with most gold-bordered cards.
Between the outstanding player selection and the overall beauty of the
issue, higher-grade examples from the set are extremely pricey, making
affordable specimens tough to find.
SGC has only ever graded 16 total examples of this 1909 Ramly T204 of Cincinnati right fielder Mike Mitchell.
Centering
is very slightly west on the canvas, but looks really nice overall. There
is some edge wear and chipping that is so common
with the set's gold
borders, particularly in the corners. There is lots of gold loss, with a spot of soiling at the midpoint of each border's edge. Some snow in the portrait area mostly misses Mitchell, though some does catch his cheek. Even still, his image is bright and generally clean. The reverse
is surprisingly clean for the grade, with only one noteworthy spot of soiling to the left of RAMLY. Soiling is not
unusual for these
cards,
where the
embossing can act like a dust magnet.
Attractive Ramlys are among the
most beautiful cards in the hobby, but
the eye appeal of the issue can sometimes suffer in the lower grades. Nevertheless, the scarcity of this issue far outweighs any perceived cosmetic flaws on this example.