This past week, Topps released their 2010 T-206 Baseball Cards. The set continues a tradition which goes back more than a century.

The name T206 refers to the catalog designation assigned by Jefferson Burdick in his book ‘The American Card Catalog’.

T-206 cards were issued with 16 different backs, representing the 16 different brands of tobacco which the cards were issued with. Due to the same card having different backs, there are actually far more than 523 T206 cards. The actual number of front/back combinations are not fully known as new combinations are discovered from time to time. The 16 backs were:

• American Beauty
• Broadleaf
• Carolina Brights
• Cycle
• Drum
• El Principe De Gales
• Hindu
• Lenox
• Old Mill
• Piedmont
• Polar Bear
• Sovereign
• Sweet Caporal
• Tolstoi
• Ty Cobb
• Uzit

The set features many baseball Hall of Famers including Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and Christy Mathewson.

The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates’ star and the card is widely considered to be the most sought-after and most expensive card on the planet.

The T206 set consists of 523 cards and over 100 of the cards feature minor league players.