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 17 total examples of this 1909 Ramly T204, with only eight receiving a higher grade than the VG 3 offered here of New York catcher Admiral Schlei.

The centering very nice on this one. There is some light edge wear and chipping that is so common with the set's gold borders, particularly in the corners and along the top edge. There is some light soiling in the portrait area, but it mostly all lays on Schlei's chest and in the background, not obscuring his face which remains bright and clean. The reverse is clean of any glaring soiling, though it does have some faint toning throughout. 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. The scarcity of this issue far outweighs any perceived cosmetic flaws on this example.