Hi Jon. "The Southern Find" (so termed by Bill Mastro) occurred when I was contacted by John England a former card collector and dealer, who told me that he had been contacted by a man from Louisiana who had over 2000 T213 Coupon cards he wanted to sell but John couldn't afford to buy them all himself. We went together with two other individuals and bought the cards for $10,000, his asking price. The cards were in incredible condition and were brought to us in a large box where the elderly gentleman said he had had them since he was a young boy. At the time (around 1980), Coupon cards were considered inferior to other tobacco sets like the T205 and T206 and were not collected by very many collectors since they were a regional issue from Louisiana. Because they had the same images on the front as those on the T206 set, they were also not very desired. When we got the cards, we divided the cards as follows: we would take the 24 Cobbs and based on a draw, the first person would get his pick, then second would take the second best and so on. If there were an odd number of cards, like 14 Mattys, we would divy out the Mattys and the last two people would get the first two Johnsons. Then the commons would be divided first come first serve, the 2s and 3s together. I took 3s until I had the near set (missing 2), then started taking 2s. I had 2 Cobbs, McGraw, Bender and five more 3s with the overprinted backs along with the near set.
I sold my duplicate 2s for $2500, so I was even and still had the near set of 3s which I sold about 2-3 years later (to my now chagrin). Finally I sold the overprinted 3s about 20 years later, when they suddenly were bringing much, more than 20 years before although not what they bring now.
The near set of 3s went to Bill Mastro (for peanuts now :-( ). I noticed a couple of years ago a beautiful small grouping of T213-3 HOFers in his catalogue which went for a bunch and which he attributed to the "Southern Find." I think this is evidence that that near set of mine was broken up. Shame. No clue where the 2s went. I assume John England's T213s went to Larry Fritsch as John sold Larry his complete collection of baseball cards for close to a million dollars supposedly. One other partner, Dick DeLong, who opened up a card shop after England sold out, ended up selling all his T213s. My Dad actually bought many of them and I sold them for Dad on eBay about 8 years ago, there were a ton and they were very nice. Dad sold off his complete baseball card collection (he started collecting long after I did) and accumulated one of the best matchbook cover collections around (gack!) That left one person whose name I won't mention for privacy sake. When we divied up the cards, she couldn't be present and asked me to pick for her since she trusted me. She had quite a beautiful haul of cards, almost all T213 2s and most without any cracking. I'd say that she has close to a set and I believe maybe the best collection of T213 2s in existence. I hadn't asked her about the cards in over 25 years but her son said she told him she still had all the cards. Safely hidden away.
It was a great adventure. The seller got his asking price and the buyers got a very good deal. My only regret is that I didn't keep that T213-3 near set. Putting together a near set now, card by card, would be almost impossible, plus extremely expensive if you could find the cards at all.
For those not familiar with the T213s, the 2s have a very glossy front which makes them extremely prone to cracking. The 3s have a flat, dull look with no gloss. They are not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the 2s but are much, much harder to find. The 2s say "20 for 5 cents" on the back, the 3s say "16 for 10 cents." That is the difference in the backs, except the overprints and that is another story for another day.
