[kkkkandp]

For some reason (my USPS delivery guy has a hernia?) I just received my REA catalog today, despite the fact that I placed a marker bid on an item the day the auction opened for bidding. Most of the time when that happens, I just search online for the Old Judge stuff because that is my focus. But with catalog finally in hand, I decided to do the page-by-page flip through. I still love that smell!

I still just focused on the 19th century stuff since I don't think I've bought a non-19th century card (other than some modern Yankee stuff) in probably 10 years. I used to be more interested in general collecting, but once I realized I could never complete a HOFer set and then fell in love with Old Judges I pretty much have tunnel vision. There was a great selection of N173s in the REA catalog, which I already knew (none of which, unfortunately, I wanted), but there were some other nice items like the 1886 Louisville team Cabinet, the 1892 Columbus team cabinet, the 1888 Des Moines team cabinets, and the 1888 Syracuse Stars team cabinet. The page that really caught my eye, though, was the one with the Kalamazoo Bats Dude Esterbrook.

Despite being a 19th century aficionado, I never really paid much attention to the KBats because they were always too expensive for me, but the pictured Esterbrook was hard to ignore. After reading the writeup, if it truly is a one-of-one, that is pretty rarified air. As I already stated, the little I did know about non-19th century cards I forgot long ago, but that Esterbrook writeup got me thinking (as did Greg Mitchell's post on the T3s): what other generally distributed cards in this REA auction are one-of-ones or at least significant rarities (i.e. no more than a handful known)? So, no over prints, ghost images, etc. I'm not sure we should even consider cabinets, but I could be convinced otherwise.