1908 Rose Company Postcard

The Rose Co. Postcard (PC760) set was issued in 1908 and was one of the largest sets ever produced at the time. The Rose Co. advertised in trade newspapers in 1908 and announced that they would be offering 12 different players for each of the 16 Major League teams, making for a total initial edition of 192 cards. Later, in 1908 or early 1909, The Rose Co. updated their set, adding eight additional players to their initial offering, making a total of 200 different Major Leaguers. In addition, they also produced a 14-card set featuring players from the Scranton Miners from the New York State League. Included in the Scranton subset is Moonlight Graham from the movie Field of Dreams fame. In total, there are currently 214 different subjects known to exist, but there is still a chance that additional subjects will pop up.

Included in the original 192 card set are no less than 25 Hall of Famers, including virtually every star of the era, such as Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson. The card of Walter Johnson is the first that pictures him a Major League uniform and is considered to be his rookie offering.

These postcards are thought of as being some of the most attractive ever produced with most featuring striking images by Carl Horner, the same photographer that supplied the portraits for the E107 Breisch Williams, W600 Sporting Life Cabinets, T204 Ramly and T206 White Border sets, among others. The round black and white portraits are surrounded by an embossed gold frame that features crossed bats. The background of the postcard is a green playing field and includes an embossed baseball and baseball diamond along with generic images of a fielder and a hitter. They are some of the most ornate cards that have ever been produced.

Most of the cards feature a typical postcard style back with a “TRC” company logo, but a few also exist with an advertising overprint for Greenfield’s Delatour Chocolates. The cards are typical postcard size, measuring 3-1/2” x 5-1/2”.

These postcards are very scarce. Most of the known cards from this set have between 3 and 6 known examples with some subjects having only a single specimen known at this time.