Finds

Cards new to what we define as "the hobby" turn up all of the time. Most oftenly these occurances appear to be isolated incidents, but quite often they are largely anonomous (such as the Skydash find). REA offers an example:"This card is one of an exciting recent find of three high-grade New York Giants player Kalamazoo Bats. In the past, all of the high-grade New York player Kalamazoo Bats cards known to exist originated from a single legendary find in 1987 that included approximately ten New York players. It is remarkable that a new find of these great rarities, even a small find of just three cards, has surfaced at this late date".

Regarding high-grade New York Giants player Kalamazoo Bats, or any other card group of significant scarcity, it is my belief that there are plenty more still out there. Of course, this is only my opinion. But I think that these cards were put away by persons early in the hobby's development. As others around the hobby during this period may attest, there were many diverse cards, associated chaos, lack of understanding, inadequate resources, and in many cases: wisdom.

I recall how treasured the Sports Collector's Bible was when it was released. And I recall how the sellers who I encountered wanted to sell me t-206, Goudey or PlayBall which they had by the pound.

I would venture a guess that more than half of the existing, stored away unidentified
cards still exist. These cards, I speculate, are stored away by persons who know that they are "stored away", but either do not care, or do not imagine their value.

What do you think?

Early last year I came into a small lot of raw E105 Mello Mint's from an older gentleman in South Carolina.
Hadn't been touched for 75 years +. In the group were Bescher, Dooin, Evers, Seigle, Shean, Knight, & Doolan.
Ultimately this is how I was able to fund my Sgc40 E90-1 Jax in my set.
The buyer, (dealer) sent them into SGC and received 60's, 70's, & 80's. By far this was my most rewarding find.

Tony

I think that most hidden away collections or future finds are in the hands of people who just don't know the real value of what they have. There are small 'finds' all the time - ebay seems to bring them out. Thinking back the the Skydash collection that was a family collection that someone had thrown away because they thought it was worthless, but one guy in the family knew it was worth something and rescued what he could. There were the Clement cards that showed up on ebay a few years back that Keith Olbermann bought up - they were listed by one of those ebay drop off shops, the Overland Candy wrappers with new types that showed up in an estate auction last year and made there way in to the REA auction. I still think there is a ton of stuff out there in scrapbooks in attics and closets that nobody pays attention to or they just won't sell because the scrapbook was pieced together by great-grandpa. And how in this day and age does a near set of T206 cards with a Honus Wagner go unnoticed?

My largest find ever was a group of 43 Star Player Candy cards, earlier this year. The group had 15 HOFers including Ruth (which graded a 40, the highest this card has ever been graded) and Cobb - the cards can be seen on my website at www.imageevent.com/crb972

Chris

was the group of T227 cards which included the Cobb and Bender and a bunch of boxers. A friend came to me with a bunch of cards he inherited. They were in a box stored in an old barn for 20 years. He had no clue what he had. They were in poor/good condition but still they were genuine. I was hoping for a T206 Wagner in the box but not this time.


Mark

I once found at a garage sale a stack of 1968 Topps game cards wrapped up with a rubber band. 25 cents later, the lot had 5+ each of Mantle, Mays, Rose, Aaron, Clemente, Killebrew. I wound up selling them for $100 a set (had 3) and the other singles for about $200.

13 years old...that was cool.

sdbh

I don't know if this is considered a find but last year, at a show I found 10 Successful Farming back M101-5's on a dealers table. He had no idea they were rare backs and had them priced as common back M101's. Needless to say I did very well with them.

I'd love to know where the Holmes to Homes cards (if you call 7 cards a find) were discovered. I was happy to grab them and will surely hold unto a couple while trying to free up some other stuff from others. Unfortuantely though I only got six of the cards as Shoeless Joe was sold all to himself (had I just sold my truck before REA!)

I was at the annual Bishop Guertin HS show in Nashua, NH in 2003 and flipped over the card below. The dealer always had great stuff and never went anywhere near eBay. I told him this was worth something and he said "okay... $50". That was a great show that ran for 25 years and is apparently now defunct.

Same year - I got a tip to go to an unfathomably crappy coin shop in Millerton, NY (birthplace of Eddie Collins, dontcha know). 3 hr drive from Boston and well worth it - I bought a T204 Cicotte (now in an SGC 40 holder) and a bunch of other cards for next to nothing.

Had a couple of true finds in the 80's when I was a pup and no one really cared about cards. Those all got sold for college beer money not too long after. Sigh.

Bill

Wow, some great finds!

Being a Ruth collector, I especially enjoyed the Star Player Candy find, a heckuva card! If you sold the card, may I ask how much and if applicable how or where it sold?

the-illini wrote:My largest find ever was a group of 43 Star Player Candy cards, earlier this year. The group had 15 HOFers including Ruth (which graded a 40, the highest this card has ever been graded)[url=http://www.

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Finds still exist and have not really dried up despite popular belief. Through estate auctions, over the past 3 years, I have been able to buy such items as an N162 Beecher, N28 Anson, and a lot of 50 T209-2s amongst other things. The only downfall is that people have become more aware of what they have, though not completely. As a result of this, I have had many items at these auctions slip through my hands because they were selling for near market value (lots of T3s, Fan Craze set w/original box, E103s, etc.).



I guess the one thing about these finds that you don’t see much anymore is a large quantity of material from the same source. I see T206 cards and similar items pop up all the time in these estate sales but have never seen a grouping of hundreds of them.

The bulk of my T206 collection came from a find when I was kid, about 1500+ T206's and few 200+ T205's and T207's. If you want I can bore you with the details...

Finds are out there but Zach was right on in his post about people knowing what they have or think they have today.

Cheers,

John

1500+...

I'll go grab a beer and prepare myself to be bored.

sdbh

John, I would enjoy hearing the details of your monster find.

I have fantasized that scenario many times! Good for you.

Who was the player on your first t205?


-Randy

(P.S. Don't you think smelling tobacco cards is a little akward? )

Oddly enough Hippo Vaughn who I later find out is sort of a tough common in the T205 set...It's the one card that I will always keep.

wonkaticket wrote:For about 4 years after that the person would call my Mom and Dad and ask for my want list and would show up a dozen or more times with cards I needed for my set. By the time I was 18 I only needed about 8 cards to finish, and up until Saturday night I’ve been stuck at needing 4. Over the years I have traded some of the cards for other cards I needed or wanted upgrades etc.

Great story John. What a nice guy for calling your folks up about your wantlist and trying to help you out.

In general, what kind of condition were the cards that you got from him in the large deal? Seems like he wasn't too condition conscious if he dumped boxes of t206's on the roof of his car

Also, approximately how many of those cards still remain in your t206 collection? Do you remember him having any other prewar baseball stuff besides t206's?

Ben good question I do remember in fact many of the raw cards in my current collection of T206's or my set were from that find even some of the graded ones too. I would say they ranged from G-NM but the bulk would fall in that VGEX-EX range. You have to remember that 10-15yrs ago folks were not as anal about touching cards or handling them. Many collectors even trimmed cards to fit in sheets and albums..LOL

I really think that folks don't handle cards as much as they did back in the day and that is a bad thing not a good thing. Touching cards up close is the best way to get know what you collect its really hard to pass of a fake card to someone who handles these cards, you end up just getting a feel for them, something you dont get from cards in tombs. Another thing is the smell of the paper I remember back in the day opening up my binders full of T-cards and that old paper smell, call me crazy but it was great!

This person got most of the cards from estate sales and such and then sold them for a small profit to a handful of clients etc. I have enclosed a few scans of the orginal find this should give you a good idea as far as condition.
These were scanned about a year after the find I have never really shown these to anyone before, I had to use my Dad's office old SCSI scanner it took about 4mins per scan...



Over the years I have upgraded quite a few of the lesser condition cards mostly southern league cards and continue to do so to this day, I still have about 800-900 of those cards still and am thinking of selling about 150-250 of them...to aquire new stuff.

I did get others (types) from him over the years T209's,T210's,E98's and a bunch of T205's I traded away most of the T205's to get extra T206's but that's another story all together. He did contact us about a large caramel card find and asked if we were intrested, I said no as I only really collected T206's LOL, I still kick myself to this day for not looking at them, he said it was around 200 cards...

Also back in those days I would pass on cards I already had lots of collectors did, I remember one time at my dinner table with my Mom and Dad he offered a NM Green port of Cobb, I passed as I already had him. Now its one of the cards I want to upgrade..LOL.

I was even lucky enough to open 2 unopened packs of Sweet Caporal which I bought at antique store in Gettysburg PA I found one T206 card...and one fish.

When this person stpped calling I moved on to picking up a few items I needed form a collector in Maryland who was named Dan McKee Sr., later I would find out that Dan Mckee Jr. owned the cards and I just bought from his Dad. I had never even met Dan jr. until about 4-5years ago but had been to his house and bought bunches of cards from his Dad.

Actually the bulk of my collection was collected over a 7yr period and up until 5 years ago I had never even been to a card show or bought from an auction...LOL.

John that Speaker is STUNNING!!!!

I can't stop looking at it!!!!

Congrats!

Scott

That is some story John. And a bit depressing how all of us 30 somethings and under today won't ever have the same thing happen.

nice post, nice thread, nice find, nice cards!

All I can say is WOW!

Around what year did you buy all these cards?

sdbh

Dave dont be so sure...I'm only 33. Sean this was around the late 80's 1988-1989 or so if I recall. What kills me is during the High School years I spent more money on my sports car and women, if I could go back in time and tell myself to spend money on cards vs. women I would!

I remember passing on some pretty choice items because I was more concerned with girls vs. cards.

JoAnn if you're on here see what you girls did to us boys..LOL