Greatest Hits, Vol. II

[darwinbulldog]

I've tallied the votes from the earlier thread. The baseball cards that were voted as most iconic are (in chronological order):

T206 Honus Wagner
T206 Eddie Plank
E90-1 Joe Jackson
"T206" Cobb/Cobb
Baltimore News Babe Ruth
1914, 1915 Cracker Jack Joe Jackson
M101-5, M101-4 Babe Ruth
"1933" Goudey Nap Lajoie
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle

What I'd like to gauge now is how many times each of these cards has been offered for auction over, say, the past 10 years. Mantle I would guess is well into the hundreds, even if we ignore eBay (I see 127 of them just at Heritage), while the BN Ruth is still in the single digits. Are these data easy to pull from VCP? (I don't have a membership, so feel free to tell me to "go get a job, ya bum.") If not, I guess what I'd like to go by are completed sales in the various auction house databases. And for that I'd like to ask people what they consider the top 5-10 auction houses for these types of cards. REA and Heritage of course, but then who? (Let's omit Legendary.)

Incidentally, has there ever been a collector with a complete set of these cards?

[RaidonCollects]

I'm sure there's been a couple collectors who have got them all at some point in time, but I know some of the big collectors tend to keep their collection private.

I probably won't be of much help with the prices, as I don't have access to VCP etc. Maybe at some point we could compile a graph of the average price history of certain cards, although you would have to take the condition as a factor.

Owen

[Andrew1975]

VCP shows 6 recorded sales of the Baltimore News Ruth and 27 recorded sales of the T206 Wagner.

[Baseball Rarities]

Incidentally, has there ever been a collector with a complete set of these cards?

Halper had them all when he sold his collection.

I know of one collector who definitely has a set and another that probably does - the second collector has at least all of the difficult ones, but may be missing the 1952 Topps Mantle.

The 1914 Baltimore News Ruth is the toughest of the group. AFAIK, only 7 different collectors have one.

[Sean]

Yes, the Baltimore News Ruth is the killer on this list, but it's not hard to believe that some who own them also own the others, even the Wagner.

But if one was to add the T206 Doyle Nat'l to the list, with I believe only eight known, I doubt that you would find anyone who owns both the Doyle and the BN Ruth.