Produced in 1910-11 by the American
Tobacco Company, the Turkey Red cabinet cards were redeemable by mailing
in coupons found in packs of Turkey Red, Fez and Old Mill brand
cigarettes. The large-format cards were produced on heavy stock,
measuring 5 ¾” x 8” and feature beautiful, colorful lithographic
printings featuring one of 126 different subjects (including 25 boxers,
which are catalogued as T9 cards, but are actually part of the same
set).
Cards are found with checklists on the reverse, or in the case of
card numbers 77-126, with a Turkey Red advertisement. Due to their
size, the cards are often found with pinholes and back damage from
mounting in scrapbooks or hanging on walls, and are seldom found in
higher grades. Difficult to find in quantity, they are considered to be
among the most beautiful and desirable of all the baseball tobacco
issues.
Legendary hitter "Wee" Willie Keeler represented squaring to bunt on
his T3 Turkey Red card (he should really get the bat head out over the
plate; he's going to get hit by a pitch that way). Keeler was one of the
greatest players of the deadball era. Owner of a lifetime batting
average of .341, Keeler hit a monstrous .424 in 1897, though that was the only season in which he
broke the .400 plateau. This example has been graded Poor 1 by PSA thanks to some surface wear, rounded corners, and soft edges.
PSA has only ever graded 44 total examples of this T3 Turkey Red with a
checklist back of Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler.