Vintage Card Of The Month: 1914 T222 Fatima Turkish Blend Eddie Murphy

This month’s VCoM from straight out of packs of 1914 T222 Fatima Turkish Blend cigarettes. The cards were printed by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company and used photography while other tobacco companies were still using illustrations of the athletes on their cards. The set is also not a baseball exclusive set, there are also other sports athletes as well as actors. 

I picked up this Eddie Murphy because he was later part of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox team that threw the World Series and I am really drawn to that team. He wasn’t one of the players involved and had no knowledge of the games being thrown so he eventually earned the nickname “Honest Eddie”. 

These cards are rather rare and extremely condition sensitive. They were printed on very thin stock, literally paper thin, and they are larger than the standard tobacco era card of the day at 2.5” x 4.5”, roughly the size of a Tall-Boy style card. So, because of the size you will often see creases and fold marks but the glossy sepia photo more than makes up for the folds in appearance. Mine has a major fold across that someone taped, because it isn't torn I am guessing they did it to add support to the crease area.