A new Abe Attell

I just got this new Abe Attell in the mail today and I'm excited about it.

I don't care that a lot of my posts are becoming recent pick up threads.  Hey, this blog is mine and I like to show what I pick up.  So here is my latest guys...

A 1909 Ogden's Pugilist & Wrestlers of Abe Attell.

 

I have several other Abe's but this is one of my favorites.  I am working on this set a little, I think I have three other examples at this point. 

 

For those who don't know, Abe was involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal involving the Chicago White Sox cheating in the world series. 

 

Abe was supposedly a messenger between gangster Arnold Rothstein and the players of the Chicago club.  He was working with pitcher "Sleepy" Bill Burns to try to get Rothstein to financially back the fix.  Because of Abe's involvement in the scandal, his cards usually command a small premium.  The good news is that he is included in many issues of the day as he was a pretty good boxer too.

 

I'll share a couple other Attell cards if I ever get them scanned. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this card as much as I do.

 

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

New Pick Up

Hello everyone, I recently picked up a other 1920 W519 Decalco Litho boxing card.

I really like this strip card set of boxing stars and they just don't seem to come up for sale all that often.  So, I'm very happy to pick them up when I can.

This particular example is number 11, Irish Patsey Cline.  I have two other examples from this set, just don't have them scanned at this time.  Here is the Cline I just picked up.

 

I really like the images and colors on these cards.  I've also got a Jack Britton and a Tom Gibbons.  Here is an image of the Jack Britton although it is not my card.

 

 

 

I am a fan of full body poses on prewar cards which is one reason I really like this set.

 

There are twenty cards in the set listed below.

 

1. Jack Dempsey
2. Tom Gibbons
3. Pete Herman
4. Frank Moran
5. Billy Miske
6. Jess Willard
7. Johnny Kilbane
8. Rocky Kansas
9. Young Pal Moore
10. Jack Britton
11. Irish Patsey Cline
12. Ted Lewis
13. Georges Carpentier
14. Bill Brennan
15. Joe Stecher (wrestling)
16. Fred Fulton
17. Soldier Bartfeld
18. Benny Leonard
19. Mike Flamier – Zulu Kid
20. Wladek Zbyszko



There is another related set known as W521 which are essentially the same cards with reverse images. 

Two of the subjects are also not boxers but are rather westlers, Wladek Zbyszko and Joe Stecher.

These are just really nice looking strips in my opinion and I'm have a fun time slowly chipping away at it. 

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

Random Card From My Collection

Just wanted to share a random card from my collection.

Here is a typecard from my collection.  It is a 1910-12 M116 Sporting Life of Nig Clarke. 

This set has 287 cards checklisted with 400 total in the master set with variations which makes it one of the larger sets from the era.  They were originally issued in 24 series with 12 cards per series and were sold that way.  The original checklist in the ACC was at 288 for this reason, however only 287 have been confirmed.

 

 There are three types of backs on these cards and they were issued in different series.  My example is a Type 2 back.  Examples of the three types of backs are shown below.  As you can see, Type 1 can come in either blue or black ink. 

 

Image courtesy PreWarCards.com

 

The card fronts are all portraits of the players and many of them share the same images as was used in the T206 set.  The backgrounds of the portraits can come in pastel or blue colors.  Not all cards come with both color backgrounds though. 

 

OldCardboard.com has a checklist of the 400 different variations in the master set here.

 

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

 

 

 

 



Happy New Year Everyone

I just wanted to kick off the new year with a new post folks.

Not that I have much to say today, but figured a post on the first day of 2020 was a good idea so I'm just going to show some cards for you to see.  Some of them I own, some of them I don't. 

First up is my favorite Honus Wagner card.  This is a c. 1910 E-Unc card from the Blue Captions set.  There are some other cards listed as being from this same set but this is my favorite for sure.  There are only two known of this card, both are graded by SGC, one a 10 and this one, a 20. 

Next up is a perfect 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle example.  I love this card.  The mustache and beard are just perfect.  Being in OBC, I'm used to low grade cards and this one is just right.

 

Next up is my 1933 Goudey Jimmy (Jimmie) Foxx #29.  I used to have Jimmie's 1941 Playball card, but sold it to help acquire this one.  I do miss the 41 Playball, but I like this Goudey a little more so I'm glad to have it. Such a classic Foxx image.

 



Something a little different than cards here.  A old generic baseball punchboard.  I have a couple of these laying around.  They are pretty cool and smaller than I thought when I got them in hand. I believe you would have paid to punch out one of the squares and could win a prize based on the legend at the top of the punchboard.

Then one of my favorite e90-1 cards.  This Rebel Oakes card is a classic image on baseball cards and appears in several different sets.  I'm very happy to have it.  Notice how the glove extends past the top border of the card.

 

This one is a strip card of one of the greatest athletes of all time, Jim Thorpe.  It shows Thorpe in full indian headdress.  This is a very rare card and comes in a larger size as well.  I particular like this one because it is the strip card and it still has the stars and number on the bottom.  I saw one of these strips over ten years ago in a lot that included several strip cards and tobacco cards but the seller didn't identify the card in the listing.  It went for way less than the value of the individual Thorpe card.  I wish I had bid on it at the time, but didn't.  Oh well, next time I'll know to bid.

The next couple images are of some miscuts that I really like.  One is a T206 Green Cobb and the other is a T215 Pirate back Meyers.  I just think these miscuts are super cool so I wanted to show a couple good ones to you.

 

 





This next one always give me a little smile and think it's just too funny.  This is an old 1887 N172 Old Judge card of Old Hoss Radbourn.  If you look closely (and I'll post a close up as well to help you see it) at his left hand, you might see something surprising. 

Here is one of my favorite baseball cards altogether.  This is an 1887 Four Base Hits of Mike "King" Kelly.  This is a beautiful card in my opinion. 

 

 

This last one is just for fun.  It's one of the funniest baseball cards ever produced.  The infamous Keith Comstock ball to the nuts shot.

 

 

Thanks for reading this far guys.  Happy New Years to all of you and I wish you all the best this year.  I'll be trying to post a little more often of course. 

 

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

Recent Pick Up

I recently won a new card in the latest Sterling Sports Auction.

It's another one of these odd circa 1910 game pieces.  I did a post about the other two I have and what I've learned about them so far here.

I haven't learned anything new about them since April but I'm thrilled to have another one.  I now have Tinker, Chance and Baker.  Just need to find a Evers to have the trifecta of Tinker, Evers and Chance.

 

If you have any info on these please share it with me.  As far as I know these are all one of a kind as even this Tinker is the same one pictured in the composite photo from my post in April.

 

 

Anyway,  I really like these cards, whatever they are, and hope to get more in the future.

 

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



A look at the 1910 E98 set

With my recent pick up of my E98 Bresnahan I felt like showing all of my 5 examples that I currently have and talk a bit about the set.

It is commonly called the Anonymous Set of 30 as the manufacturer is not listed on the back of the card.  This isn't uncommon for cards from this era.  With several E98s including a stamp on the back from Old Put Cigars some refer to the set as the Old Put set as well.

The cards with the Old Put overprint sell for a premium in the open market and are scarce, but they can be found. 

The backs of the cards have a numbered checklist but the cards themselves are unnumbered.  It is also full of HOFers and big names like, Mathewson, Wagner, Cobb, Walsh, Young, Lajoie and Connie Mack to name a few.

They also come in different color backgrounds; red, green, blue and orange.  I'd personally like to acquire at least one of each color and so far only have red and green. 

There was a huge significant find of E98s in 2012 in Defiance, Ohio, from a family who previously owned a meat market.  This find was called the Black Swamp Find (BSF) and cards that were graded from the find have this provenance on the flips.  These cards were all in superior condition with many grading 8s, 9s and 10s.  This inflated the population of the series considerably and the once scarce cards became almost common as a result.  I still like the pre-BSF cards in lesser condition the best.

Some have questioned the authenticity of the BSF cards and think they may have been printed more recently and are not genuine while many others this that is incorrect. 

My cards are obviously not BSF cards and were part of the smaller population of E98s that existed before the find. 

Like the name says, there are 30 cards in the set.  The Tenney card has his name misspelled Tenny and the Cy Young card is actually that of Irv Young.  Since I refuse to pay Cy Young prices for an Irv Young card, I will never actually complete this set. 

Here is the checklist for the set:

Card*	Player	Team
1	"Christy" Mathewson	N. Y. Nat'l
2	(John) McGraw	N. Y. Nat'l
3	"Johnny" Kling	Chi. Nat'l
4	(Frank) Chance	Chicago Nat'l
5	"Hans" Wagner	Pitts Nat'l
6	Fred Clarke	Pittsburgh Nat'l
7	Roger Bresnahan	St. Louis Nat'l
8	Hal Chase	NY Amer.
9	Russ Ford	NY Amer.
10	Ty Cobb	Detroit Amer.
11	Hughey Jennings	Detroit Amer.
12	Chief Bender	Phila. Amer.
13	Ed Walsh	Chicago Amer.
14	Cy Young	Cleveland
15	Al Bridwell	N. Y. Nat'l
16	Miner Brown	Chicago, Nat'l
17	George Mullin	Detroit, Amer.
18	Chief Meyers	NY Nat'l
19	Hippo Vaughn	NY Amer.
20	Red Dooin	Phila. Amer.
21	Fred Tenny (Tenney)	NY Nat'l
22	Larry McLean	Cin. Nat'l
23	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland, Amer.
24	Joe Tinker	Chicago, Nat'l
25	Johnny Evers	Chicago, Nat'l
26	Harry Davis	Phila. Amer.
27	Eddie Collins	Phila. Amer.
28	Bill Dahlen	Phila. Amer.
29	Connie Mack	Phila. Amer.
30	Jack Coombs	Phila. Amer.

This has become one of my favorite sets and I'm slow chipping away at it.  Here are the images of the cards I currently have. 

Russ Ford N.Y. Amer

Hal Chase N.Y. Amer (Lionel Carter Collection)

Fred Clarke Pttsburgh Nat'l

"Miner" Brown Chicago Nat'l

Roger Bresnahan St. Louis Nat'l

I really like how they look in the SGC slabs and try to find them graded that way, but I couldn't turn down the raw Ford for the price. 

I hope you like this set as much as I do and enjoyed seeing mine.

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

Recent Pick Ups

Having picked up a lot lately, but here are a couple pieces I recently got.

First up is another E98 Hall of Famer of Roger Bresnahan with a red background.  I love the E98 set and am always excited when I pick up a new card from this set.

The E98 set comes with either red, green, blue or orange backgrounds. 

The next item I recently picked up is this really cool early 1900's cabinet photo of a baseball team with "Mayflower" on their jerseys.  It's a little rough, but I think it's just so cool and am thrilled to have it.

 

They have their kid mascot in the front row and the picture has bats, gloves, a catchers mask and the guy in the middle is holding up a baseball.  I like the ump behind the fence in the background too.

Well, those are my recent pick ups folks.  I hope you liked them.

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