Negro League Postcard on E-Bay
 

I thought my $4K max bid on e-bay for this postcard would be good enough with room to spare. Guess I was wrong, although the next highest bidder after me was at $1,500...........

Ouch!
 

I was watching this one closely until it passed the $350 mark a day or two ago. My budget wasnt going to allow much more right now. $4049, ouch!!!
I was WAY OFF.

What was the factor/player/rarity that pushed this postcard so high?
Dave

…..

…the non-Cuban expert departs :)

Is that Alejandro Oms seated second from left?

Tom C

It's a great postcard but what makes it special is it's from Martin Dihigo's first couple of years of playing professional ball.
I am not 100% on exact year but my guess is 1923 by looking at the rest of the team, which makes Dihigo 18-19 years old. His first year was 1922.

The 3rd guy from the top left is not a superstar pitcher, it's actually Champeon Mesa.
Some other notables on the photo; superstar Alejandro Oms, Fabre, Baro, Levis, Mirabal, Fernandez among others.

Fantastic postcard, congrats goes out to the winner.

Steve

Amazing PC, strong historical significance, but $4K, Wow!

No Tom, Oms is the one standing in the middle with his arms around Pablo Mesa and JM Fernandez.

I've never seen a photo where Oms is smiling and this one is no different.

That would have been my next guess. He is younger here than most of the images I have seen....his face doesn't look as weathered and drawn as I remember. I figured the guy seated with the blurred face was a more likely candidate.

Tom C

I thought someone might pick up a deal with the incorrect listing and description. Then it was started and hovered between $100 and $350 for several days and I began to think someone might pick up a steal. $4k is amazing. Am I correct (my negro leagues knowledge is not very strong) in believing this predates Martin Dihigo's generally accepted RC? The 1927-28 Mallorquina is considered his RC, but I think this is from 1925-1927 as Mike Herrera would be present in a 1928 photo. (Also am I correct ID'ing the second from the right on the back row as Dihigo? - Like I said, not very knowledgeable.) Other I think I identified are:

Isadro Fabre - Bottom Far Left

and

Top L/R: ?? – Juanelo Mirabal - ?? - ?? – Jose Maria Fernandez – Bernardo Baro – Martin Dihigo – Oscar Levis

I'll stay out of this one at this point, but I thought the undivided back dated this to pre-1910.

Bottom left is without a doubt Isidro Fabre so the image has to be 1921 at it's earliest IMO.

Back was divided with correspondence on one side and address on the other. It would only have address if undivided.

I don't get it, but okay

Sent from my SM-G730V using Tapatalk

It lists Correspondence on one side and Address on the other. If it was pre-divided it would just list Address because the correspondence would need to appear on the front of the postcard. It's just missing the line but would still be considered divided if I'm not mistaken.

Okay, thanks.

Explained perfectly Packs.

4k doesn't surprise me. How do you determine a good or fair price on something so rare and significant? We'll probably never see another.

Have to run out right now but I believe it is the 1927 Cubans team. More later......

Somewhat surprised
 

I was bidding and had the high bid of $1,200 for awhile and was praying it would slide past the big spenders, but I was wrong. It's an absolutely amazing postcard. I narrowed the year due to being between 1923-27.

Not many images of Dihigo from that early and some other great players shown also....

I saw it the first day it was posted, nearly freaked out when I saw $100 thinking it was a buy it now. Realized it was an auction and knew it was going to get expensive. Wasn't thinking 4K expensive though! Congrats to the winner, great PC!

..

If I have the Tetelo Vargas ID correct (front row, second from right) that makes this the 1927 team along with the rest of the player combos previously mentioned by Steve and others. The Cubans team from 1922 to 1927 had virtually the identical roster of star players every season so that made it very difficult to pinpoint the year on this one (if a uniform database for Negro League teams is known, that would help a lot too).

Not Tetelo. See annotated below.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...pse250731a.png

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...ps14c373e6.jpg

Right, Jason. Maybe Portuondo seated second from left?

Who knows. I'd love to see how someone could dig that out. I can't believe I even put a name under that person's face. Might as well be silly putty.

Those other two unidentified guys probably hold the key to the year.

Without Vargas and no Pedroso or Hooks Jiminez or Padron, now I'm thinking 1925.

I think you mean Juan Padron. Here's Fabre with Juan Padron from Ryan by way of agatetype. He's not in the image.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...psc0e6496c.jpg

Without Vargas and no Pedroso or Hooks Jiminez or Padron, now I'm thinking 1925. We know the year is '23 - '27 and the nucleus of the team was the same throughout all five seasons. Dihigo's rookie season would be nice and would make it more valuable, otherwise, I don't think it really matters that much.

Funny, the only way that I spotted the postcard on e-bay was because another item was listed recently as a 1900 Cuban Baseball........... and it did not sell so I was checking to see if the seller relisted it or not and came across this postcard. When I saw how the seller listed it, I figured it would be an easy win at a bargain price. Guess I was wrong on both accounts, huh?

It could be as early as 1922. I would guess it's either 1922 or 1923. Amazing piece. Interesting bid history on this one. Looks like the underbidder has had 92 bid retractions just in the past 6 months. Were you the underbidder, Phil?

-Ryan

Yup, I think I mentioned that in my first post, Ryan, that there were only two bidders above $1,500 and I bid $4,000 and did not win it.

Your objective is obviously to point out past bid retractions which have no impact on this discussion, unless a Net 54 member was the seller and, even if so, I did not retract my bid on this item so it has no bearing on the subject.

I had the $1500 bid

92 bid retractions? I didn't think you could do that.

Is it a bidding strategy?

C'mon guys, I can't divulge all of my secrets, then everyone would do it..........

Actually, my main objective was to offer some insight on the possible dating of this incredible item, since I'm somewhat familiar with the subject matter and players that have been identified (and misidentified). I did think the bid history was interesting, which I noticed right when the auction ended. I thought it was very strange that the next highest bid was $3,999.99. I thought it might have been a shill bid, so I looked at the bid history of the underbidder. $3,999.999 didn't seem like an amount someone would bid if they were trying to win an auction. More like they were trying set a reserve, or more accurately, shill. I didn't realize that was you at the time. Frankly, I'm surprised to find out about all your bid retractions, but I'm glad to hear that all the bids on this particular item were legit. It's certainly worth the amount it sold for, in my opinion.

-Ryan

Here is a team photo known to be the 1922 Cuban Stars, jerseys and pants are similar to those on the e-bay postcard, maybe even the same, but socks are different and no Dihigo pictured. I have seen conflicting info on whether Dihigo played for the Cuban Stars in 1922, rosters and stats do not show him there but many of the biographies and narratives that I have read do mention him playing for the Cuban Stars in 1922.

Anyway, just curious, Ryan, how did you come up with the 1923 date as opposed to the other years mentioned. I researched a couple of guys like Teran and Perez and Lopez, who were listed on the '23 roster, but I don't see them in the photo. Who are the remaining couple of ID's that are missing and probably the ones that solve the puzzle?

I must know this secret bid retraction and odd max bid strategy.

I am so impressed with the amount of information you guys have been able to collect via thorough research! I've always been too intimidated lack of 'formal' record-keeping with regards to Negro and Cuban League play to consider studying them.

Max Kudos to all participating in this thread! - Very informative.

It sure would have been fun just to see even one of their games...

Barnstorming Dreams...that must have been fun.

Seems like everyone already does do it, and it makes me a little sick to be honest.

I thought this thread and this item was fascinating, but I'll admit this revelation kind of surprised me. I always assumed some of these serial retractors were on this board, but obviously kept it to themselves.

If you are not shilling auctions, and I doubt you are, you are actively interfering with auctions. Just because Ebay now allows it to happen with zero repercussions, doesn't make it right.

:(

I'll try to dig up what i have as far as box scores for Dihigo on the Cuban Stars. The most obvious detail, while not exactly scientific, is just looking at Dihigo. He is very young in this image. I've been collecting his cards and photos for over 15 years. I've owned over 100 photos of Dihigo over the years and have a database of probably 400-500 total images of him, mostly from various magazines in Mexico, Cuba, etc. Unfortunately, it's much harder to find images and information about his playing days in the United States than it is for Cuba or Mexico. I would find it very hard to believe that this image is from later than 1924, maybe 1925 at the latest. But that seems like a stretch to me. My best guess would be 1923, but a range of 1922-1924 seems the most likely to me.

It's difficult to go by a lot of the info that is out there regarding rosters since there are numerous mistakes in some of the ones published in commonly used reference materials. I would like to see a close-up of the blurry player in the front row, which might help some, but there are only 3 or 4 players it looks like it could be (Portuondo, Teran, Cardenas, Fabelo) and none of them really help to pinpoint an exact year since they were all there for multiple years. I'd also like to see closer scans of the guy in the top left corner.

-Ryan

Pretty sure that's Perez, btw, front row, far right.

-Ryan

Yes, good one Ryan, that's gotta be Pepin Perez, I didn't think of him.

Blowing up the image on my Ipad, the blurry guy in the middle looks more and more like Portuondo but that's just me.

Great info guys. Phil, Jason, Ryan in particular. I was watching this one but with the combination of the old PC back with 1920's style uni's I was already out-matched. And I love research. Then add in that I couldn't properly ID HOF Dihigo and I was done.

Thanks for giving me this thread as an answer key guys!

Amazing, amazing piece. Congrats to the winner.

-Al

I'm sure many here are clever enough to figure out "secrets" that would interfere with other people's auctions to our advantage but instead choose a different path. So, no, not everyone would do it.

Edited to add: wouldn't anyone question the valdidity of an auction result where the underbidder had 92 retractions?

For the sake of accuracy the retraction total is now 93!

That makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth....

You could have had inverse-id skills like me - then you would have bid thinking you were trying to get something entirely different :eek: