Recent Pick Up: Fred Clarke T206

I recently picked up a new T206 Fred Clarke with bat card in an SGC 20 slab.

I sold off a bunch of Mike Trout rookies not long ago and turned them into a nice HOF T206 card with funds to spare.  I'm very happy with this new card in my collection.  I'm looking to add another one soon as well.

From the Baseball Hall of Fame website:

Fred Clifford Clarke

    

Born: October 3, 1872, Winterset, Iowa

Died: August 14, 1960, Winfield, Kansas

      

Bats: Left

Throws: Right

      

Played For:  Louisville Colonels (1894-1899), Pittsburgh Pirates (1900-1911, 1913-1915)

      

Elected to the Hall of Fame by Veterans Committee: 1945

Biography:

With 2,678 career hits and 1,602 managerial wins, Fred Clarke excelled both on the field and in the dugout. In his first big league game, he went 5-for-5 on his way to fashioning a career .312 batting average and topping the .300 mark in 11 seasons. In 1903, he led the league in doubles and slugging average while piloting the Pirates to an appearance in the first modern World Series. A full-time player-manager in 16 of his 19 seasons at the helm, Clarke led his clubs to 14 first-place division finishes.

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

Another Amazing Find!

Well we just finished learning about "The Black Swamp Find" where 700 E98's were found in Ohio and now there has been another find called "The Southern Fairway Find".

Image courtesy Sports Collectors Daily

This find was found in the southeastern US and was in the family for three generations collected by the orginal owner as a kid when the cards were issued.  This find is highlighted by several cards, but most notably by an astounding 42 T206 Red Hindu backed cards.

The Red Hindu back is an extremely rare back in the T206 set and a find of this many in one collection is amazing.  Included in the Red Hindus is two Ty Cobb red portraits.  Previously there has been one of these combos and it's in a PSA 4 holder.

The PSA 4 is believed by many advanced T206 collectors to have been re-fronted and not an authentic example of this combo.  They believe that an authentic Red Hindu back was taken from a different player's card and then an authentic red portrait Cobb front was joined with it to make a Ty Cobb red portrait with the Red Hindu back.  With the discovery of these two new Cobbs it has been now documented that this combo does in fact exist. 

Also found in this grouping was two new examples of Shoeless Joe Jackson's T210 Old Mill card.  These are new to the hobby.  These cards are very coveted by advanced collectors due to their rarity and the fact that they are such an early card of Jackson.

I'd like to thank our supporters over at Sports Collectors Daily for this story and you can read the whole thing on their site here.

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

T206 John McGraw Printer's Scrap

I did a post years ago about some really cool printer's scrap cards where the backs were covered in test prints from various sets.

Here is another one that is on the same level as those ones were when it comes to color and amount of different test prints on the reverse.

This John McGraw card was obviously hand cut by someone during the period in which T206s were being produced.  These cards come from sheets that were used to test the printers and sometimes they would send the same sheet through multiple times.

When they did this, they created these sheets that have lots of messy backs and it appears that some folks didn't care about the back and cut out the cards to keep anyway.  These cards have gained in popularity over the years and this example sold for $5,036.  Obviously the multiple prints on the reverse is the reason for the high hammer price. 

The prints on the back are of Bradley and Manning as well as tests of two different advertising backs, Tolstoi and Piedmont. 

Here are some images of printer's scrap that I posted about before just for comparison.

 

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a cool one.

T206 Wagner With A Backstamp

As some of you may know I collect T206s with stamps on the backs of them.

I also have a project called The Great T206 Backstamp Project where I am documenting as many backstamps as I can find.  It is an interactive project and I welcome everyone to participate if you have any T206s with stamps on the back.

There is a link to my project in the sidebar but you can also access it here.

This T206 Honus Wagner sold in the May 2012 REA auction for $651,750.  The last time this card surfaced in the hobby was back in 1997 when REA auctioned it off then.  It is stamped with the date "Oct. 16, 1909" which is the date of the last game of the 1909 World Series between the Pittsburg Pirates and the Detroit Tigers. 

Now I know I'll be able to add a Wagner to my stamped back collection some day.

Please check out my project and help me out if you can.  I'm in the process of moving the website to a new location also and that will go live in the next week or so.  It will have much more flexibility in the number of pages and images I'll be able to add.

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

The Great T206 Back Stamp Project

I've finally got my new site up for The Great T206 Back Stamp Project.

If you have never seen the project before, it is a gallery of all the different back stamps I have found on the backs of T206's.  I also get images that other collectors send to me from their own collections.  I encourage anyone to participate in the project by emailing me images of your stamped back cards to thegreatt206backstampproject@gmail.com and I'll add your stamps to the site. 

I've been working on the project on and off for the last several years and have a nice collection of images on the site with many more to add still.

I'm currently collecting T206 commons only if they have a back stamp on them.  I'll pick up Hall of Famers with or without a stamp, but commons must be stamped for me. 

My favorite type is this purple number stamp and I have quite of few of these in my collection so far.  I've also documented many more that I don't own. 

Here are some other examples from the project.

Please check out the project here and take part in it if you can.  I always appreciate when collectors send me images of their stamped cards.

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a fantastic one.