Recent Pick Ups

 Three great new pickups for me recently.

As some of you already know, I collect certain stamped back T206s.  These purple number back stamps rarely seem to show up and when they do, I always try to get them.  Well, a fellow collector recently reached out to me because he was selling off some of his stamped cards.  He had a couple of the purple number stamps and he knew I collected these specific stamps.  

We came together on price and I landed these two beauties.

These stamps are usually accompanied by pencil writing on them including other numbers and scribbles.  I have no idea what the numbers mean and have never been able to decipher any patterns with them.  

I don't know what the writing means in relation to the purple numbers either.  I just assume the numbers are the order in which they were acquired by the collector that stamped them way back when.  They are not stamped in alphabetical order so they aren't organized that way.  

The highest number I've seen so far is 122.  I have no idea how high the stamps go other than that.

The other pick up is this W565 panel of Schwartz and Stribling.  I needed the Stribling for my set, but there is no way I'm cutting this panel apart just to have a single of him.  This will remain a nicely cut panel.

I wrote about this set recently here.  There are only five boxers in the set and I am now missing just the Benny Leonard for completion of the boxers.  They don't show up that often, but I'll find my Leonard for a fair price someday.  I was pretty excited to have gotten this panel.

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

1910 E-Unc Diamond Border Set

 I believe I've posted about some of these cards in the past, but here we go...

This is another one of my favorite sets from the 1910 era.  Very little is known about these cards so I, of course, don't have much to add to the knowledge that is already available.  

These are paper thin "cards" that have been catalogued as E-Unc.  A generic term which means that they are believed to be associated with candy distribution somehow (hence the E designation) and are uncatalogued (hence the Unc.).  

There is a small checklist of known players, six in total, all Hall of Famers.  They are:

1. Cobb
2. Collins
3. Evers
4. Mathewson
5. Wagner
6. Young

That checklist is one I found from many years ago and I am not sure if any others have been found since then.  

They are found is three different levels of being cut from whatever they were cut from.  Yes, they are hand cut as well.  They are either cut down to the size of a standard caramel card, cut out with a diamond shape behind the card, or cut into almost a square with the card in the middle, the diamond shape and the full background with four baseballs in each corner.  

These interesting cards are either printed in a red or blue tint with off-white backgrounds.  It is believed (I don't know if it has been proven) that all cards are found in both colors.

Images are easily found online, except for the Collins, which I have not found to date.

Here are the cards, in varying completeness, in alphabetical order.

Ty Cobb w/ diamond background.

Johnny Evers cut down to card size.

Christy Mathewson w/ diamond background.

 

Honus Wagner cut down to card size.

Cy (Irv) Young cut down to card size.

Notice that all the poses are either that of the subjects' E93 or E98 card except for that of Cy Young, which is his E97 pose.  

Also note that the person pictured on the Cy Young card is that of Irv Young and not Cy.  I point this out because I hate when Cy Young cards picturing Irv Young are considered Cy Young cards in the hobby.  These cards should not be considered Cy Young cards in my opinion.  But that's a post for another day I suppose.  

I did mention that there is a third level of being cut from whatever these cards were cut from and that third level is that of having the full background with four baseballs in the corners.  Here is an image of the Mathewson with this cut.

This is the inspiration for this post.  I found this image recently and found it fantastic in it's completeness.  

It has been speculated that these were actually cut from notebooks.  This image tells us that there was a bit more to the source of the cards than just the card and the diamond background.  This card does not have borders on it, so it very well could have been cut from something even larger and a notebook cover would not be out of the question.  

I'd love to see a notebook with these "cards" on the cover, uncut, to finally answer the question of where they came from.  

Let me know if you've ever seen a Collins from this set, or any subject not listed above.  

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

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