Recent Pick-Up

I thought this was too cool to pass up when I saw it so I tossed a little bid out and ended up with a new piece for my shelf.

I really like items with the centennial logo on them. 1939 and our beloved game was a hundred years old already. Unreal. Anyway, it's not the most amazing pick up but it sure as heck looks pretty cool don't you think?


Good ol' Abner Doubleday in the center of the Centennial logo. I assume all of my readers know that he actually had nothing to do with the creation (or evolution) of the national pastime. Obviously this tidbit of information wasn't known back in 1939.

It's interesting to note that the 1939 record book didn't have the same red border as the other years did. Now, I'm not an expert on these books, so if you know any more info than I do and the fact the color is not red points to this being a fake then please let me know. I have seen others with this same color though, so I'm pretty sure this is authentic.

I like to pick up items that will decorate my office shelves someday when I have a home office that I can turn into my baseball room. Not everything I pick up is so old either, sometimes I pick up some nice modern stuff too. Well, thanks for checking this out and letting me share it with you.

Enjoy the hobby all, we got a great one...

Hobby Reference Not to be Missed

There are many things in life that we take for granted, and whenever I realize that I have been taking something for granted, I try to make up for it in some way.

To that end, I wanted to make sure that anyone who reads my blog is sure to become familiar with one of the very best Vintage/Prewar Baseball Card resources on the internet. If you haven't already become familiar with them, you absolutely MUST check out OldCardboard.com.

They have a wealth of information about our hobby's different vintage baseball card sets. They are focused only on baseball which I particularly like as I don't really collect anything but baseball. Their site is easy to navigate and I am constantly referring back to it for card images or checklists or just some general info about a set.

They offer all of the following for your reference needs:

1. Set descriptions and images - Each featured set has a brief description as well as at least a couple of images to help identify the set.

2. Galleries of tons of sets - Many of the featured sets have full set galleries with images of all cards in the set. The T206 set is one of these and they have images of all 524 cards.

3. Checklists of tons of sets - Most, if not all, of the featured sets have full checklists listed.

4. Links to eBay's top 100 Vintage Card dealers - This is a great reference for when you want to find a new search on eBay.

5. Monthly e-newletter - This is an amazing reference tool with updates to the site listed as well as great articles and upcoming auction info.

6. The best Prewar magazine published today, fittingly called "Old Cardboard" - This is seriously the greatest current vintage baseball card publication out there with well written articles with full color images, set galleries, and even collector profiles.

7. Plus a bunch of great links to all sorts of related sites from collector's personal sites, other references, auction houses, show calendars, etc.

Please check out this outstanding hobby resource if you haven't already. The guys behind the site and the magazine are a couple of great contributors to our hobby and we should all be doing something to support their efforts and help them keep up their great work.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a great one.

New Link :: David B. Vintage

There is one dealer of vintage sports cards and memorabilia that stands out as a truly great and honest seller on eBay. His eBay seller name is davidbvintage and he has recently launched a very nice new website as an additional forum to offer collectors his consignors items.

If you have never dealt with David on eBay you can rest assured that he is the most honest seller out there and he has great stuff to offer.

Do yourself a favor and check out his new site here:

I've also added him on my links at the side of my blog for all of you.

If you have items that you would like to sell, you can consign them to DavidBVintage and have them sold for you on eBay or on his website. Details are on the website. His reputation and feedback level on eBay make him one of the best consignment choices around and I can only imagine his website will be become a wonderful place for vintage collectors to find new additions to their collections as well.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a super duper one.

Recent Pick Up

I am very excited about this pick up everyone!

On my Jersey City want list, there are a few cards that I am not too confident in my chances of ever picking up. At least not any time in the next several years. This is due to both rarity and cost.

If you follow my blog at all, you know that my budget as a collector is pathetic by most standards. I live on the hope that at some point in my future, I will have gotten far enough into my career that I will be able to really spend what I would like to on cards. Until then, I'm picking up beaters at best.

This is no exception. However, this is one of the cards on my wantlist that I never thought I would find, let alone find in a condition that I could afford and still look presentable.

I submit for your viewing enjoyment a T215 Red Cross Tobacco Billy Purtell of Jersey City. When you're done drooling, please keep reading. :)

This card also exists with the ultra rare Pirate back and, of course, I will be forever trying to find that one in comparible condition so that I may be able to afford it. To be honest, this one was a little out of my price range, but I couldn't let it go.

When else would I ever find one? Of all the Red Cross backs to show up for sale, how often is one specific common going to be the one offered? Know what I mean?

Now, I know what you're thinking, "But Andy, his jersey says Chicago, not Jersey City." And you are correct. But the caption reads Jersey City.

And that's all that matters when you're putting together a wantlist for a specific team right?

So, I'm very happy to have added this card to my collection recently. I'm not going to be beating this one for a while. I do have a lot of recent pick ups to post though. I haven't really shared any of my new cards in a long time, so I'll start posting some of them for you all soon.

Enjoy the hobby all. It's a great one.

Hans in Blue

After years of immersing myself in the vintage baseball card hobby, I feel like I can identify most cards by type. It isn't very often anymore that something shows up that I haven't ever seen before.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when someone posted a picture of this Honus Wagner card on a the Net54 vintage card message board.

My first thought was that he was playing a joke on the board and he was good at Photoshop. However, after contacting the poster, he assured me that this was an uncatalogued Wagner card.

He had won it on eBay a while back and said it had originally sold in a Mastro Legendary Auctions in August 2004. At that time it was part of a larger lot of prewar cards. (A nice lot I must say). Check out the original auction listing here.

Apparently, there are only 2 examples of this card known at this time. I love finding out about a new card. It's even better when that card is of the caliber of a Wagner. Better yet? When there are only 2 copies known to exist!

I wanted to make sure to share this with anyone who follows my blog (I know I'm not posting as much as I should, but I'm glad some of you are still checking it out) because this is the sort of thing you need to know when you're serious about your hobby.

One of the two examples was labelled at one point as a "w-unc" by PSA. I assume they gave it the W label because it is blank backed, but from what I'm told, it's not much like a strip card other than the blank back.

The other known copy, sold in a Heritage Auction in April 2009 and resides in an SGC holder with the label, "C. 1910 E-Unc Candy". This makes a bit more sense to me than a W label. Check out the Heritage listing here.

This SGC example closed at $4,481.25 with the buyer's premium. I'm a bit surprised at this figure to be honest. I would have thought that such a rare Wagner would have brought a lot more than this. I guess maybe the fact that it isn't well known and doesn't have any advertising on it kept the price down, but seriously? Only two known and less than $5K?

I think with a little good press in the hobby and the right exposure, one of these babies could fetch a much better sum in a good auction.

I guess time will tell. Personally, I think it's an awesome card. Even if it doesn't have the most clear image or any advertising.

Well, enjoy the hobby all. It's a great one.

t206museum.com was a FRAUD!

I know I have been absent from my blog for some time now, but I haven't been absent from our great hobby!

I've been working a lot after moving from CA to NJ and I apologize to all of you who really enjoyed by blog. I'm going to try to be a bit more regular again going forward.

On to the front page story...

It has recently been revealed that t206museum.com was a sham that was set up by a scam artist who used it to hype T206 "rarities" and "oddities" so he could profit on fake cards that he made. It has been discovered that he was the creator of the Old Mill Black Overprint backs. These are all fake. He even had one for sale on his site for $35,000.00.

Read much more detail here than I'm going to go into on this post, so please check it out and know that I'm not taking any credit for it.

I used to check out this site when I first started getting back into cards years ago and I'm shocked by this realization. What a terrible fraud to play on collectors.

This goes to show you that just because a card is graded, even by PSA or SGC, doesn't mean it is real. Be careful out there all, but still enjoy the hobby...

Classic Cobb

I just saw this image of Ty Cobb and had to share it with all of you.

I can't believe I never saw this one before. If you look real close you can sort of see how Ty used to intimidate those players who chose to actually cover the bags.

Awesome!

Enjoy the hobby all...

1912 Boston Garter - Matty

Boston Garters were issued over a three year period between 1912 and 1914 with very different styles used each year.

The inaugural issue, pictured here, is by far the most attractive. It is not argued by many that the designs suffered from one year to the next with the final year's offering being little more than a black and white photo with a little Boston Garter ad on it.

This example of Christy Mathewson's card has always been one of my favorites. The image is fantastic with Matty relaxing before the day's contest. Perhaps contemplating how he will handle the afternoon's line up.

But what I love most about this card, is that while Matty sits in quiet solitude, he seems completely unaware of the blatant bludgeoning of the player just outside of his window. I always wondered why the artist decided to show a player being beaten by a baseball bat so clearly in the background. I could see if it was an ump, but another player?

I just wanted to share this observation with any of you who hadn't seen it before.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a great one...

What a Deal!

Well, I'm pretty upset that I missed this one folks.

Actually, I'm more upset that I didn't put a snipe on it as I would've beat this winning bid for sure.

While perusing eBay last night I saw this card, and since I like to pick up beaters for cheap, I decided to take a closer look at the listing. As you can tell from the front, it's not much to get excited about.

However, after scrolling down into the listing, I noticed what makes this such a steal.

At first I thought there's no way this could be for real. I must be missing something here. But it all looked good.

The best part about this card is the back. It wasn't listed anywhere in the listing, but the back is a Red Cross back making this not a T206, but a T-215 instead. And, from what I can tell from the image, the caption at the bottom of the front is brown and not blue making this a Type I example, that's the more rare of the two if you're keeping track.

I'm certainly not an expert on these, but I know they are in damand and they command much more money than the same T206 pose in the same condition.

This one did sell for more than what it's common T206 counterpart would have, so I have to assume the bidder knew what he was looking at.

The closing price including shipping: $42.83

Nice job to someone out there. This is just another example of a good deal on eBay. Their out there if you just keep looking for them.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a super duper one...

Mellomints Tin Bothers Me

This old tin for Mellomints candy was auctioned off in REA's 2004 auction and the description has always annoyed the crap out of me.

Every time I am flipping the old 2004 catalog and I see this tin I get a little more perturbed. The description reads in part:

If you think your Mello Mint collection is complete, think again! Offered is a circa 1910 Mello Mint tin, measuring 8 inches tall and 10 inches in diameter, designed to be used by candy stores to dispense the presumably very delicious Mello Mint treats.

While I can't argue that this particular tin did contain Mellomint treats, they were certainly not the same thing that is related to the rare E105 Mello Mint cards. They have nothing in common other than the similar name.

The cards were distributed with Mello-Mint (notice the hyphen and so "s" at the end) gum, not sugar confections as the tin advertises.

The backs of the cards have the logo of the gum pictured and it clearly states, "Smith's Mello-Mint, The Texas Gum" and it further clarifies that the card are, "wrapped with each 5¢ package of SMITH'S MELLO-MINT GUM". This seems pretty clear to me that these cards were never packaged in tins like the one pictured above and sold in the REA auction under the premise of being related to the cards.

How could this tin possibly be listed as it was in such a respectable auction house's catalog? That really annoys the hell out of me. What the hell?

Thoughts anyone?

Enjoy the hobby all...