Recent Pick Up : T205 Al Bridwell

This knocks another card off my T205 NY Giants want list.

I've been slowly picking away at my T205 NY Giants collection and picked up another one a little while back.  Figured I would share it with you.  It's not in the best shape as you can see, but then again that doesn't really matter to me.  I'm not too concerned with condition as long as it's somewhat presentable.  When I finally have the entire team set I'll get them all framed with a nice little plaque labelling it. 

I've got six cards now: Bridwell, Devore, McGraw, Schlei, Snodgrass and Wiltse (both ears).

I will get both Wiltse cards but I'm not too concerned with getting both of the Otis Crandalls (T crossed and T not crossed) or both Arlie Lathams (W.A. and A. on back) as they are really the same card from the front.  I may decide to get both Crandalls if they both become available for reasonable prices during my quest however. 

Here's a look at my NY Giants set so far.

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

Things You Should Know: 1893 Just So Buck Ewing

Here is one of 19th Century baseball cards' holy grails.  The 1893 Just So Tobacco William "Buck" Ewing.

Buck Ewing was the first catcher elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939.  He was a career .311 hitter and hit over .300 in 10 of his 15 years in the major leagues. 

The 1893 Just So set is extremely rare with most examples, including all four HOFers, known with only a single example.  This card was originally discovered back in the 1990's when a gentleman in PA was remodeling his mother's bathroom.  Behind a wall he discovered the card nailed to a stud and it was covered in black staining from smoke that escaped into the space from the chimney.  Not until 2009 was the card brought to the hobby however and was included in the 2010 Robert Edward Auction. 
For many years collectors speculated whether or not an example of Ewing was even issued in the set that includes only Cleveland Spiders.  Why, they wondered, would they not produce a card of the superstar Spider Ewing?  But until it was brought to the hobby, no one had ever seen one. 

I knew of the speculation before the card surfaced, so when I saw it in the auction even I was amazed.  It's one of my favorite cards for the sake of the story behind it, the mystery of it's existence and the circumstances of it's discovery. 

It became the 16th card in the set's checklist when it was unveiled.  Just So's are made of heavy blank back paper and are about 2 1/2" x 3 7/8" in size.  The other three HOFers in the set include Jesse Burkett, John Clarkson and Cy Young. 

This is one card you should know about, even if you don't collect 19th Century cards. 

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

Recent Pick Ups - '66 Topps

I'm working on several postwar sets and trying to get into trading with other collectors while pursuing them. 

In the last month I've picked up a several new 1966 Topps and wanted to just show a few of the highlights of my recent pickups. 

I was very happy to get these key cards out of the way early on in my quest for this set.  I've had the Mickey Mantle for years already.  While picking up small lots of cards I'm also looking out for the other key cards.  I still need the Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Gaylord Perry and Sandy Koufax, but those won't be too difficult to pick up.  Well, the Perry might be a little harder to come by as it's a SP high number and the last card in the set.

I'm looking for these cards in collector grade so that keeps the price down which works or me.  If you can help me out let me know.  You can see my wantlists if you click the link in the right sidebar of my blog near the top. 

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

Stamped Back T206s

I'm not sure how many of you know I'm fascinated with T206s that have stamps on the back, but I just saw two new examples and one of them is awesome.

The first one is a fairly normal one with possibly an old collector's initials, "SM".  I've seen a lot of cards with similar stamps of various initials so this one isn't really groundbreaking.

But the second one shows examples of three distinct stamps that I've seen on other cards by themselves, but never on the same card. And in addition to these three there are also two letters, again possibly initials of a collector from long ago, "EH".

This is the one I think is awesome.  I'm so bummed that I didn't see these fast enough to buy them when they were for sale, I would have at least taken this second one.  I just love backstamped T206s.

Anyways, I know there isn't a lot of other like me that get excited about these things, but I still wanted to share these with you.

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

Things You Should Know: 1911 T205 Addie Joss

Many collectors are unaware that the 1911 T205 Addie Joss is a memorial card of this great HOF pitcher.

Not only is the T205 Adrian "Addie" Joss a key Hall of Famer and one of the rarer cards in the set (both of which add tremendously to it's desirability), but it was treated as a memorial to this pitching great.

Addie passed away from meningitis on April 14, 1911 ending a fantastic career at age 31.  He tossed a perfect game against Ed Walsh, another Hall of Fame pitcher, on October 2, 1908 and another no-hitter in 1910.  He hurled for 9 years for the Cleveland Blues and Naps (affectionately nick-named after Napoleon Lajoie) and never had a losing season.  He won 20 or more games four years in a row for them and 45 of his 160 wins were shut outs. 

He was a right handed pitcher who would twist himself entirely around with is back facing the batter before coming around and tossing a side arm delivery to the plate.  This was confusing to hitters and won him a career 1.89 ERA. 

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978. 

The reverse of this card reads as follows:

“Addie” Joss, whose death in 1911 was a great loss to his team and to the national game, was a native of Cleveland, and had always played with the team from that city. His best year was 1908, when he won 24 games out of 35, and put the Naps within half a point of the pennant. On October 2 of that year he pitched a game against Chicago, when no player of the White Sox reached first.

He was a faithful player, liked by his team mates and respected by the public, many thousands of whom attended his funeral.

This is certainly one of my favorite of all the T205's and one card I hope to own at some point. 

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

2011 Topps Kimball Champions

Yes they are modern and not what you would expect to find on my blog, but they are based on the 1888 N184 Kimball Champions.

I think these are pretty cool and I'm currently working on the 150 card set.  They do have several prewar stars including Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Tris Speaker.  But they also have modern stars like Stephen Strasburg.  Players like Roy Campenella and Mike Schmidt are also included.  So you really have a wide range of stars to pick up in this set. 

They were issued in three series of 50 cards in each series.  I'll be adding these to my postwar trading site soon so if you have any to trade please let me know.

If you haven't seen these yet, I highly recommend them to you.  Even if you focus on the prewar or vintage stuff.  These are really nice cards.  The artwork is fantastic too. 

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

Things You Should Know: Cracker Jack Matty

Here's another short post about something you should know if you're going to be in the vintage card hobby.


The Cracker Jack sets of 1914 and 1915 (E-145) are some of the nicest sets of the era.  The 1914 cards were only available in packages of Cracker Jack and therefore they generally all come with some sort of candy staining on them and that keeps their grades down most of the time.  A lot of collectors prefer to focus on the 1915 set both for it's availability as well as it's condition.

The 1915 set was available both in packages of the popcorn confection and from a mail in offer where a person could acquire the entire set in one shot.  And that set didn't suffer any candy staining as the cards were never included in packages.  Hence the much nicer examples from 1915 over their 1914 counterparts.  And since most of the images used between the two sets are the same from one year to the next, it's not a lot different if you had to choose just one year to go after. 

One thing to know about Cracker Jacks is how to tell the two different years apart easily.  The backs of the 1915 set were printed upside down if you flip the cards over.  This way, if the cards were mounted into an album (of which one was produced for the 1915 release) with a flip mount at the tops of the cards, then when you flipped the card up to see the back, you would be able to read the print. 

Image Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions

Well the most important card in the entire series can easily be argued to be the 1914 Christy Mathewson.  It is extremely rare and because the 1915 Matty uses a different portrait image, the only way to get the horizontal throwing pose is to find a 1914 example.  The pictured example sold in a Robert Edwards Auction for $40,600.00.  It is one of the finest examples known to exist, as you can see it has minimum candy staining on it. 

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