Another Antiques Roadshow Tobacco collection.. Wow!
 

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365397303/
Just aired on PBS. Clip starts at 48 minutes into the video

Amazing
 

Thanks for sharing.

Only collected American Beauty backs, awesome. Genius of the guy to put the magnets at the corners of the T202's. :rolleyes:

That was a nice looking Cobb.

Damn, that Cobb is sharp!!

wow! that's unbelievable! Very exciting that there are still huge unearthed raw collections out there. I wish my great aunt left me a stash like that.

Amazing condition cards...too bad they didn't show more types of cards in the collection.

Agree with that, she had a bunch of cards, would have been nice if they had shown a larger variety.

Awesome collection. Thanks for sharing.

That show made me hate my relatives from back in 1909-1912!!!

Why couldn't they have collected them????

Ain't nothin' wrong with a high grade AB Cobb!

Amazin'
 

I wish my Topps cards from the 1970s were in that good a condition. WOW!

just goes to show you, guys...keep your fingers crossed, your eyes open, and your hopes and dreams still have a slim chance of occurring. LOL

The lesson here, seriously, is a firm reminder to treat the older folks right - which we should all do anyway...I just am more aware of that need since I turned 59...one of the very few things I am more aware of these days.

Anyone else think some of those cards looked trimmed?

If you're referring to the t206's they were likely all american beautys...which "are" trimmed by their nature!

It also would be cool to know how many t205 AB's there were?

Ahh...that makes sense. Didn't know that about ABs.

I was eyeing....
 

the pile with elberfeld! prob a nice stack of ab 350 and 460 nf's....

Ted....

I wonder if they had a few your missing....


or my AB nf Johnson I need?????????:confused::D

So many cigarette cards were donated to the WW1 paper drive by patriotic Americans that it always is surprising that these keep popping up.
Looks like T202s, T205s and T206s only....

Forget the baseball cards. The painting of the early Yankees baseball crowd is the best item on this episode!

Whoa! I didn't think the cards could have been that fabulous when I posted about the painting.

Would like to watch that episode. When will it air next? Their show might get many old collections out in the open by family members now. Another question would be is it better to get the entire collection graded and labeled as somekind of "find" ????

the painting is very cool...but is unlikely to be a depiction of yankee stadium...perhaps when the yanks played at the polo grounds?

Heavy sigh, my Mother always told me about my Great-Grandfather who lived into his 90's and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. Didn't save any cards...

Do you guys think the $200k estimated value was in the neighborhood?

hard to know since only 8 or so cards were shown? If all were in similar condition...and all t206/t205 were american beauties...then I'd guess it's not too ridiculous!

The T202s were real and they were spectacular.

So this is what euphoria feels like. Holy blank!

All I can say is God bless cousin Rose's brother. That T206 Cobb is immaculate. So is the T202 Cobb Steals Third + Jennings.

I really really really want to see the rest of the collection. How can they just show those few cards? They need to put more from the collection on their site, or something. They have to know collectors are going nuts.

They showed an overhead for a second. The only other T206 I made out was a Chief Bender. I'd love to see the rest. :p

Edit: looking again, I see a Kid Elberfeld fielding, and Jack White, also.

Wow! They said there were 345 cards - so $200k would be about $580 each. If they are all in the NM condition shown with AB backs that could be about right or even a bit low (especially if there are a bunch of Titus cards in there :) )

Gives me chills.

Thanks, Joe. I was back looking at a freeze frame when you posted that. I identified the other two I see. I'd dying to know what card that is to the left of the Cobb.

my money would be on a common front w/ab350w/frame back...nothing terribly exciting there?

If I remember correctly, one of the end panels on a T202 was Christy Mathewson and in a separate scene they showed three T205 cards of Tinker, Evers and Chance.

The Tinker, Evers and Chance cards looked nice with not much damage to the corners and not much flaking on the edges.

David

Sooooo...the next question might be...is she single?

A nice Ed Walsh T205 in there as well.

I can see the next episode of American Greed now. :D

A nice bunch of cards, there...

I was glad to see the cards weren't slabbed.


For me, the sad part was that the "expert", Simeon Lipman, said that the T in T202 stood for Tobacco. And we know that is completely wrong.

I wonder if Lipman knew the first thing about these cards. Not sure how these events/shows are run, but I imagine others reviewed the collection, scripted the session, and then put Lipman in front of the camera with a script of what to say. According to his bio cards do not appear to be an area he focuses on.
http://www.simeonlipman.com/

Mine wouldn't.

The Ty Cobb is in a screw down case. The card next to it showing the AB back is also in a screw down. Most of the other standard sized tobacco cards I'm seeing appear to be in top loaders.

Since Lipman said the collection of 350 or so cards represented most all the major stars of the era, and the only stars I can see represented are Cobb, Jennings, Walsh, Mathewson, Bender, Tinker, Evers and Chance, that means Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Napolean Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Willie Keeler, Eddie Collins, Hugh Duffy et all are in there somewhere. There's a good chance one of them is sitting next to the Cobb.

Why would a common card be in a screw down?

Well Bill you are/were more observant than I...I did NOT notice that detail...shame on the lamo Antiques Roadshow(AR) for not showing us.

Let the AR lambasting continue!

:) Pete 99% of the time we will agree.

If they make pics available on their website, so that I may drool over cards of a quality I will never own, then I'm ok with their on air omission. :p

I understand they have a finite amount of time in each show. That's where using the website for more about the items shown in an episode could be well used. Or, maybe a lucky journalist will write about this story, and provide us some more information. As a lover of pre-war cards, I would really appreciate the opportunity to see some more pristine examples like the Cobb T206 especially.

They did say that all cards were AB witch is of course is not correct for the fact that the 202s are all Hassan if course.

Also of course the T205 minor league HOF Jimmy Collins shown on table doesn't come in AB back. A little more research came up that T205 Welsh, and Collins did not come with AB backs, both did come Hassan backs.

Then there is a T205 PM McElveen that no only did it not come in AB, or Hassan. It's only know backs are HLC, Pied, Sov, and the SC brands.

So to me it looks that there is at least 3 different tobacco product being smoked in the day by the Uncle. Perhaps the roadshow didn't really have there ducks in a row as well as they could or we need to update some check lists.

Mathewson
Tinker
Evers
Chance
Needham
Wiltse both ears
Smith
Byrne
all come in American Beauty (Green)

Walsh
Collins ML
All come in Hassan

McElveen
HLC, Pied, Sov, and the SC brands.

The thing that impressed me the most were the vibrant colors on the cards. The thing that impressed me the least was the lucite holders. Hopefully there were made of good plastic as I recall a few cards back in the day leaving some color behind when those holders were unscrewed.

nice T205 Tinker, Evers, and Chance cards

Some Answers
 

She is married.

Simeon was speaking a bit figuratively when he said ALL American Beauty Backs, he was referring to the T206s which 105 out of 109 are.

The T205s are a mixture of American Beauty, Hassan, Honest & Sweet Caporal. There are 139 of them all together.

The T202 are obviously Hassan. There are 87 of them and they are all as nice as the ones on the board.

The entire collection consists of these 3 sets and totals 335. Only 2 or 3 cards total would be rated less than Very Good.

They are in GREAT shape as they rarely ever saw the light of day so the colors are not faded at all. They were kept for the better part of 100+ years in a cigar box on a shelf where nobody messed with them.

She has been in possession of them since she was a little girl and her mom had the foresight to keep them on a high shelf where she could not play with them as a child. She loves the artwork on them and has become a student of the dead ball era because of them.

The Tinker, Evers & Chance cards were put in Lucite to represent the poem, "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" by Franklin Pierce Adams

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

They have since been removed and put in individual hard cases (single brass screw) as have ALL of the cards (except the T202s which are in collector currency sleeves).

The collection has been locked in a Bank safe deposit box and insured

She loves her collection and knew they were worth a lot of money so she was not that surprised when Simeon Lipman told her the amount. She went to the Antiques Roadshow to document the collection and get a rough appraisal without having to let the cards out of her sight.

The cards are NOT for sale at this time but she is glad to have them in case of an emergency.

Some tweets from Simeon during the broadcast about the collection;


Jan 19
Amazing things are found in old cigar boxes! #antiquesroadshow @RoadshowPBS

·
Jan 19
The corners of those cards were so sharp you could cut yourself #antiquesroadshow @RoadshowPBS

·
Jan 19
Magnificent tobacco card collection, a true family treasure #antiquesroadshow @RoadshowPBS

The entire collection as been studio photographed front and back (composite picture made for each card showing front & back in single photo), and indexed by file name which follow the collectors naming protocol so they match the established check lists. These things were all done between the time the actual roadshow filming was done, August 9, 2014 and the airdate of January 19, 2015. The thought was there would be a lot of publicity and she wanted to get this collection locked in a bank vault and insured in case some mutt recognized her and tried to rob her home. The safe deposit box is light tight and in a climate controlled environment so she is happy about that. For those that don't know they are not insured by the bank or the government and very few homeowners policies will cover baseball cards and those that will won't go up to 200 grand. Fortunately there is an insurance company that does nothing but insure safe deposit boxes and they are reasonable.

She is not into the actual hobby of collecting like the folks on this forum but has benefitted from the wisdom found on this site and other Tobacco card sites on the net. She is VERY distrustful of all the scams in this world though and that is why she went to the Roadshow because whatever is told to her becomes a matter of public record and the appraisers can have no vested interest in her collection. She liked Simeon Lipman very much and he was very kind to her and very helpful.


By the way
She got a kick out of being called "Uber-Cute":) so thanks to that gentleman for that.

Hope this answers some of your questions about her collection.

BTW I am her husband.

Welcome and thanks for all that information. That is such a great collection.

The direct link to just the appraisal so you don't have to watch the whole show;

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201407A23.html

This is the best part. Well, other than the $200K as backup.

The artwork is why many of us are here, and why many of us have also become enamored with this great period in baseball history. Thanks for sharing the rest of the story.

Here is the Ty Cobb that was featured on Roadshow (Web Sized) The original files are 420mb Tiffs. EVERY card in the collection is photographed in this manner. We would be interested to know what you folks think this card is worth.


Attachment 176213