Baseball Card Find - Biggest

[nameless]

Hello,
Just a general question. Besides the recently found collection of baseball cards in Ohio can anyone recall a find that is comparable? I am just curious as to what people have found just laying around. I appreciate any feedback and I apologize ahead of time if this is the wrong thread.
Sincerely,
-John

[barrysloate]

The Oregon Find of about five years ago was among the biggest ever. It was an original family collection of roughly 1400 Old Judges, and it included quite a few rare and scarce cards.

[CobbSpikedMe]

You beat me to it Barry. The Old Judge find immediately came to mind when I read the title of this thread. I couldn't remember where it was found though. Do you know if there was an Anson in uniform in that find?

Thanks.

AndyH

[ynnek4]

cool thread.

i would be interested in learning about the famous finds as well.

[barrysloate]

My understanding was there was not an Anson in uniform, but I don't really know for sure.

[Jay Wolt]

What about Alan Rosen's 1952 Topps find from 20 years ago?
If "found" now, it would probably be worth many many multiples of what he broke it up for then.
Same can apply to his huge find of Bowman BB & FB boxes.

[barrysloate]

Jay- I think the 52 Topps find was close to 30 years ago.

[E93]

I was thinking about the '52 Topps find too. Weren't there somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 nm/mt Mantles among all the other thousands of high numbers?

I think one of the most significant finds was Rob Lifson's (REA) find of five T206 Cobb/Cobb backs in 1997. It brought the known total at the time from 6 to 11.
JimB

[barrysloate]

I was thinking about the '52 Topps find too. Weren't there somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 nm/mt Mantles among all the other thousands of high numbers?

I think one of the most significant finds was Rob Lifson's (REA) find of five T206 Cobb/Cobb backs in 1997. It brought the known total at the time from 6 to 11.
JimB

+1. The Cobb backs were amazing.

[tedzan]

Al Rosen acquired this find in 1986 in the Boston area. It comprised of 4100 Hi # cards (#311-407)....and, 1400 Semi-Hi # cards (#251-310).

Rosen first tried to sell the Mint Mickey Mantle (#311) cards for $3500 each. He had no takers; so, he lowered the sale price to $2000 each,
and sold most of this Double-Printed card of Mantle.

Furthermore, he put together 21 runs of this set's 97-card Hi # series......15 of these runs were Mint. And, he sold them all at approx. $10K
per 97-card run.

It's a fascinating story to listen to when Al Rosen speaks of it.


Post Script

In early in 1987, these same Mantle cards were selling for $10K each.
The rest is history

TED Z

[Matthew H]

Dave had more then one OJ find... the Oregon find was the most memorable but my favorite was his Indy find. There was 215 cards which included Cusick, Davin, and Veach. Plus many other scarce and desirable cards. Pictures and the story can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnXD3W1770

He also had the Fargo find of 32 cabinets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64RrqEB5-H8

There have been many finds by collectors and dealers over the last 40 years, I'm not sure how well documented they are, but I've heard stories.

[Denali]

Cache of 1930s Unopened Boxes Found:

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/cache-of-1930s-unopened-boxes-found/

[ullmandds]

that unopened 30's find was amazing...there have been some really amazing ones the last ten years...and this year has been great as well for "finds!"

[sycks22]

Dave had more then one OJ find... the Oregon find was the most memorable but my favorite was his Indy find. There was 215 cards which included Cusick, Davin, and Veach. Plus many other scarce and desirable cards. Pictures and the story can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnXD3W1770

He also had the Fargo find of 32 cabinets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64RrqEB5-H8

There have been many finds by collectors and dealers over the last 40 years, I'm not sure how well documented they are, but I've heard stories.


I was just looking at some of Dave's cards on his site and he grades Old Judge's Ex condition with half of the back missing. Does he really think that would grade a 5ish? Come on.

[Exhibitman]

I guess it depends on what you collect and are interested in. Does the Rosen find of lots of 1952 Topps cards--cards that are mainstream postwar--really compare with the E98 find or the OJ finds other than on a dollar value basis? I'd probably classify the Rosen find as more significant simply because I don't collect the other two issues. And if you don't collect any of those issues, perhaps the biggest find was something else. For example, as a West Coast collector, Leon's "Trucker Boy" find was more significant to me than the OJ or E98 find due to the tough PCL regionals that I would love to own. Here is the text of his post listing the content:

D310 (12) w/weaver fr....overall gd-vg
D311 (61) all different pr-ex
E90-1 (18) w/Jackson (pr-sold), Joss..overall pr-fr
E90-2 (1) Wagner - nice SGC 20....2 moderate creases
E90-3 (2) common and pr-
E101 (9) w/Evers, Jennings pr-fr....major back damage..
E136 Zeenut '11 (113) w/Weaver in fr...others vg'ish
E136 Zeenut '12 (36) gd-vg+/ex
E136 HR Kisses (2) gd
E136 Zeenut '13 (6) all with coupon
E136 Zeenut '14 (23) 6 with coupon 17 without coupon
E137 Zeenut '15 (67) 24 with coupon w/McMullen 43 w/o coup.w/Risberg, Lefty Williams
E137 Zeenut '16 (1) with coupon
E224 Texas Tommy (5) w/Marsans, w/uncatalogued
E-Unc Big Eater (3) w/ horizontal ex, 1 in gd-vg, 1 pr
H-unc Western Playground (40) complete set vg+
T4 Obak- (2) still unidentified but not Weaver.
T206 Old Mill- (23) w/Cobb, Evers, Chance, Willis.pr-fr
T206 Sweet Caporal ?(1) Cobb 350-460 series...pr.
T212-1 Obak (47) nice mix of framed/frameless
T212-2 Obak (116) about 25 different slogans.. pr-ex-mt
T212-3 Obak (131) w/Weaver pr-nrmt/mt
T217 Mono (8) 3 that don't have back damage......pr-gd
T222 Fatima- (7) all common, 1 high number in fr, 2 cut in half, pr....

[Matthew H]

I was just looking at some of Dave's cards on his site and he grades Old Judge's Ex condition with half of the back missing. Does he really think that would grade a 5ish? Come on.

What you are looking at is a selection of cards that nobody bought from those finds that happened five years ago. You're too late ;)

[thisisradioclash]

I'm not sure this compares value-wise, but it certainly was interesting. The Louisiana find from a couple years ago of a lot of T cards, including a previously-unknown Red Cross back or two, caught a lot of collectors' attention. How the story developed on message boards was fun to watch, too. http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/ultra-rare-t207-red-cross-back-find/

[bh3443]

What about Alan Rosen's 1952 Topps find from 20 years ago?
If "found" now, it would probably be worth many many multiples of what he broke it up for then.
Same can apply to his huge find of Bowman BB & FB boxes.

Hi Jay!
Those 52's came from my home town of Framingham, MA! Great story behind the find, too!
Talk with you Friday,
Bill

[tbob]

I have to toss in (because I was involved) the Southern Find from the mid-80's in which about 500 T213 series 2 cards and about 100 T213 series 3 cards made their way in to the hobby courtesy of a guy from Louisiana with a huge box of Coupon cards who rolled in to town. I managed to latch on to about 80 of the T213-3 cards (about 15 overprinted backs including 2 Cobbs with the OP backs), all in vg to ex-mt. Sadly they are long gone, before anyone asks. I sold them to Bill Mastro in the mid to late 80's (complete set -1) along with about 200 T-213-2s, but kept one nice Cobb OP back which I swapped about 5-6 years ago for a very nice E94 Wagner now in a PSA 4 holder. No T213-1s in the bunch. Any truly nice T213-3s (very, very tough and scarce) you see are probably from the find as Mastro broke up the set years ago. Probably my biggest regret as a collector...:(

[nameless]

I appreciate all the information. Very interesting stories.

[Denali]

I'm still waiting for someone to find a crate of 1909 unopened Drum cigarette packs.

[atx840]

The Louisiana find from a couple years ago of a lot of T cards, including a previously-unknown Red Cross back or two, caught a lot of collectors' attention.

+1 for T collectors.

I recently picked up my first T215 RC and spent the last few hours reading up on this find. An amazing lot that almost didn't make into the hobby (Pete, your Lowdermilk is bad a$$!).

http://blog.robertedwardauctions.com/?p=310

[wolfdogg]

How about the recent find of T-cards by SCP that included two,,,yes 2....1910 T210-8 Joe Jacksons???

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Just wanted to give this thread a bump. Post any new stories if you have them.