Recent Pick Ups

I picked up a few new cards this month and wanted to share them with you.

First up are two new Abe Attells. The first one is a 1948 Leaf card.  The second is a difficult to find W580 strip card.

Abe Attell was an integral part of the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  He was allegedly the messenger between the gangster Arnold Rothstein and the White Sox players in the early stages of the fix.  He was eventually acquitted but he has been linked to the scandal since then.  He was also the World Featherweight Champion for 6 straight years from 1906 - 1912.

The next card is a 1934-36 R318 Batter Up of Joe Heving with blue tint.  These cards come in six different colors which are Black, Purple, Blue, Green, Brown and Red.  I am trying to get a Heving card in all six colors.  So far I have the Black, Purple and now this Blue one.

Next up is a card in a trade.  This is a 1912 T207 Ed Reulbach SGC 60.  This is a really nice card and I am very happy to have added a nice example from this set to my collection.  I used to have another one but it was badly trimmed on three sides so I eventually sold it.

And now for my favorite pick up so far this month.  This 1909 E101 Jack Knight is one of my favorite poses on a baseball card.  I have wanted an example of this pose for a long time and I finally got it.  I was thrilled when I found out it was mine. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed seeing my new pickups.  I can't wait to get more and post them too.

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

Don't See These Too Often

Zeenuts were produced between 1911 and 1938 and each year they had a slightly different design.

Personally, I like the 1911 set and the 1918 set the best.  The 1911 is just a classic looking set with sepia photos and nice small border all the way around the cards.  The 1918 set is the only set that has a red border going all the way around.  It is this red border that draws me to this set.

Now, Zeenuts originally came with a coupon attached to the bottom of the card and most of these coupons were cut off and used to redeem something.  So finding a Zeenut that still has it's original coupon attached is a nice find. 

I just stumbled upon this card on eBay recently and since it is such a spectacular example I wanted to share it in my blog with you.  Look at the borders on this beauty.  And the coupon is still attached.  You just don't see a 1918 Zeenut in this condition with the coupon very often. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing this card.  You might not see another like it a long time.  Oh, by the way, it's being offered for $10.000.00.  Good luck to the seller.

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

Jim Thorpe Exhibit and Strip Card

Here is one of my favorite cards and it's not a conventional baseball card.

There is a 1930's exhibit card of the great Jim Thorpe where he is wearing his Indian headdress.  Pictured is a nice SGC example.

But what is much rarer and less commonly found is his matching strip card with the same image.  I saw one on eBay years ago mixed in with a lot of other random period cards.  It wasn't labeled in the listing at all as a Jim Thorpe card and you'd have to have seen the pics and known it what it was.  I was bummed because at the time I didn't have the funds to bid on the lot.  It went for a steal considering the Thorpe strip was included.

Here is an image of the strip card.  I love this card.  I hope you like it too.

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

T206 BLUE Old Mill Back at National

This is Amazing!  There has been a discovery of a BLUE Old Mill backed T206 at the National Convention this year.

Old Mill backed T206's come with either black or brown.  Until now.  Apparently there is a blue one at the National this year.  This is a first to the hobby and has never been seen before. 
I was very skeptical when mention of it was made on the Net54Baseball.com message boards today and patiently waiting for pictures to show up confirming it.  Several folks stated they had seen the card and that it was legit, but myself and others were still thinking it might be a joke.

Then they said it was at SGC getting graded and hopes began to rise.  Still skeptical, I waited for the pics.  Then, behold, they showed up.  And here they are (borrowed from those posted on Net54).

Not only is it the first and only Blue Old Mill backed T206 known, but it's HOFer Ed Walsh.  I'm still a little skeptical even though it's been reviewed by SGC and was given their seal of approval.  How can't you be?  How could this have never been seen before and then all the sudden an example shows up after this long?  And of course, it's a Hall of Famer. 

It certainly looks real.  And from the posts on the message board, several advanced collectors who saw it said it was a real T206. 
But maybe it's a re-backed one.  Maybe someone used a chemical to change the color slightly and gave it a blue tint to a regular Old Mill back.

In any event, SGC slabbed it and labelled it as "Blue Back" on the flip (I know it's hard to see in the image, but it's on the third line on the left).  I guess that's enough for me for now.

Let's see how long it takes for a second example to show up.  Maybe a collector or two have some hidden away and they just never showed the masses.  Maybe now they will come forward since an example has been authenticated and graded by SGC. 

Any way, I hope you liked finding out about this new discovery.

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

New Postage Stamps

The USPS has released a nice new sheet of postage stamps featuring some of the games greats from the past.

These are really nice new stamps and my wonderful wife got me a sheet of them just hours after our post office actually opened them up at their office.  She surprised me with them the other day when I got home from work just like she did last year when they came out with the Negro League stamps.

The sheet has four different Forever stamps on it including Ted Williams, Larry Doby, Willie Stargell and Joe DiMaggio.  Each stamp is a very nice painted rendition of the stars against a dark green background with their name along one side and Forever along the other side.  

I don't think I posted the Negro League stamps at the time so I've also posted a picture of those stamps here so you can see them if you have haven't already. 

These stamps are beautifully done using a landscape style painting of a close play at the plate on one side and a portrait of "The Father of the Negro Leagues" Rube Foster on the other.  From the back of the sheet:

"Considered the "father" of Negro league baseball, Andew "Rube" Foster (1879-1930) established the Negro National League in 1920, the first successful league of African-American baseball teams.  He served as president of the league until 1926 and established its slogan, "We are the ship, all else the sea".  The Negro leagues operating across the country from 1920 to about 1960.  Drawing some of the most remarkable athletes ever to play baseball, the leagues galvanized African-American communities, challenged prevailing racist notions of althletic superiority, and ultimately sparked the integration of American sports."

I sincerely recommend that you read about the Negro Leagues if you haven't had much exposure to them in the past.  They are a fascinating segment in baseball history and are full of amazing stories of some of the most talented baseball players ever. 

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