$25,000 for a M131 Baltimore News Cobb

I was kind of blown away by the result on the ebay M131 Cobb that was part of the group reported here by Dan Mckee a while ago in this thread.



I was wondering what other people's thoughts were on this result. Did you expect 25k?

i was expecting for it to go more than the wagner...the underbidder pushed this card up 7k. he was also the underbidder on the wagner, i don't recognize the screenname.

Does anyone recognize the underbidder? That guy pushed the winner up more than $8000. I recognize the second underbidder and he bid only $16,888.

Is there a reason why Cobb is the only card out of the fifteen Baltimore News cards recently discovered not graded by PSA? Dan originally posted a scan of all the cards side by side before they were slabbed.

yup 8k...my math is bad. i'd like to know who the underbidder is also, rman with all the connections should chime in. the cobb was never submitted to psa either.

cccc wrote:yup 8k...my math is bad. i'd like to know who the underbidder is also, rman with all the connections should chime in. the cobb was never submitted to psa either.

Wha? Did Q just point to me in the breakdance circle?

I don't know who the underbidder is.

As for the Cobb being the only card not in a PSA holder, the seller told me that it was submitted to PSA and was rejected for alteration. He then sent it to SGC and it was encapsulated a 20.

edited to add: The seller also indicated that he knew the history of the card and that it was from an original grouping which was untouched for 50 years. He was confident that there was no way that the card could have been altered, and that PSA got it wrong.

My feeling is that a card of this magnitude would have been THOROUGHLY scrutinized by SGC before encapusalation, and that it was graded properly. I bid on this card with all of the above information, and I bid on it strong - very strong.

found out who the under-under-bidder was and he bid $15,899 i believe. He is a fellow collector friend of mine and he told me he was shocked at the final price.




i know the winner...Stumpy15, he is a rich dude who i have sold a few cards to. Crazy that he paid that much!!!!


Mark

good stuff rman,

works out for everyone i guess as the cobb would seemingly be better in the sgc holder anyways. interesting psa thought it was altered since it came out of the big find.

add: we known the winner is crazy/rich enough to go that high since he needs it for his set...i wanna know the mystery underbidder.

Mark - I think your friend was the under-under-under-bidder, but who's counting

add - I also find it interesting that Richard's bid hit exactly, as it is less than 1 full bid increment over $25k. I'm sure he thought he had lots of room for error, and not just $100.

in that case i still hail wes' old gai1.5 still the king of the m131s. rman the next cobb should be yours judging by the pecking order.

By the time the next m131 Cobb comes out, I will probably be long dead and buried.

I think the bid increment at $25000 is only $100, so who knows how high Richard's bid really was. What stumpy wants stumpy getws. The underbidder cost him $10,000, though.

rman444 wrote:
As for the Cobb being the only card not in a PSA holder, the seller told me that it was submitted to PSA and was rejected for alteration. He then sent it to SGC and it was encapsulated a 20.

That is very interesting. If a card of that caliber were originally rejected by SGC for alteration and then subsequently slabbed by PSA, the hobby would use that card as a prime example of why PSA is inept.

Shame on the seller not disclosing that little fact. Wonder how Stumpy would feel about that.

Edited above post to be less inflamatory:

edited to add: The seller also indicated that he knew the history of the card and that it was from an original grouping which was untouched for 50 years. He was confident that there was no way that the card could have been altered, and that PSA got it wrong.

My feeling is that a card of this magnitude would have been THOROUGHLY scrutinized by SGC before encapusalation, and that it was graded properly. I bid on this card with all of the above information, and I bid on it strong - very strong.

Steve - I don't think the seller was hiding anything. I did not have any information that anyone else couldn't get. I just asked the seller and he told me.

pro9 wrote:I think the bid increment at $25000 is only $100, so who knows how high Richard's bid really was. What stumpy wants stumpy getws. The underbidder cost him $10,000, though.

E - you are correct. I did not realize that the bid increment is only $100 when the current bid is $25k:

Current Price	Bid Increment
$ 0.01 - $ 0.99	$ 0.05
$ 1.00 - $ 4.99	$ 0.25
$ 5.00 - $ 24.99	$ 0.50
$ 25.00 - $ 99.99	$ 1.00
$ 100.00 - $ 249.99	$ 2.50
$ 250.00 - $ 499.99	$ 5.00
$ 500.00 - $ 999.99	$ 10.00
$ 1000.00 - $ 2499.99	$ 25.00
$ 2500.00 - $ 4999.99	$ 50.00
$ 5000.00 and up	$ 100.00

that the seller should have disclosed it, I doubt Richard would have bid any less. My guess is he has more faith in SGC than PSA.

It seems curious to me that of all the cards being submitted, just this one was altered. Unless there was some change back in the day by the original owner, what would be the purpose of trying to doctor this to a 1.5, and risk it not passing muster with the graders? It may measure shorter, but then you would think it would be rejected as trimmed, not altered.

While I can understand PSA being reluctant to slab it if was short, it reaffirms my belief that they lack the ability to do a proper job in grading many pre-war issues. Obviously, this was going to be a very expensive card and potential liability would be large if they slabbed a card that was trimmed/altered. IMO, rather than doing a thorough job, they took the easy way out and kicked it back. I know that's nearly pure conjecture on my part, but their reputation and lack of accountability has reached the point, for me anyway, that I am far more inclined to give SGC the benefit of the doubt and conclude that the card is legit and unaltered than to think that PSA got it right.

EDITED TO ADD: MAN, I'M SLOW ON THE KEYBOARD--missed a couple of comments.