Your Best Deal Ever (Going Back All The Way!)

[brianp-beme]

Holy Smokes...16 Sport Kings Babes, and in such nice condition! For $8. I just can't imagine it, and what a vintage card collecting dream not from 1980 or before, but so recently. And you could have gotten them for $7.

Amazing.

Brian

Originally Posted by Kzoo

Back in the spring of 2014 at a local flea market a seller was in the process of setting up for the show with a friend of his. I was the only potential buyer around and while strolling through his items for sale, I overheard the conversation with his friend about how his move to Florida was in the near future. Amongst a bunch of other stuff under a couple white tents, he had a small stack of cards on a table with a '33 Goudey Sport Kings Ellsworth Vines on top of the stack. As I picked up the stack of cards to begin looking through them, he mentioned that 'the cards were .50 cents each or if I wanted the whole stack of 28 cards he'd sell them to me for .25 cents each'.

My first thought was reprints? No, they were thicker and felt correct for the issue. I held one to my nose and it smelled correct. I asked him where he got the cards and he pointed to an old, wooden toybox that was painted black with artwork of roses/flower arrangements on the outside that was sitting under a table. The inside of the toybox was lined with newspaper from 1933, but I don't remember the city or newspaper name. He said the toybox was full of old toys that he also had for sale and the cards were just loosely laying on the bottom. He said the toybox came from a local 'storage unit' auction. As I was looking through the cards, my heart was beginning to beat through my chest and tunnel vision set in.

There were many duplicates of only a few different cards.....there were 5 Indian Gum cards of Kishkalwa, 2 Sea Raider cards of Charles Gibbs, 5 Sport Kings cards of Ellsworth Vines, 7 Sport Kings cards of Babe Didrickson, and 9 Babe Ruth Sport Kings cards.

A couple cards had minimal damage from sitting under the toys and they were all a bit dusty, but the majority were BEAUTIFUL. The colors popped, most of the corners were sharp, and they looked uncirculated. I made the mistake of trying to add up .25 cents x 28 in my mind and paid him $8 for the stack. In a blur, I headed about 200 yards for my car. I sat down, looked around, locked the doors and put each card in a top loader. I took some deep breaths and just tried to figure out what just happened. I texted my wife 'I think I just found some great cards'. I think I was in shock, my brain was mush and I headed home shortly afterwards.

I graded most of the cards at some point over a couple year span and have since sold most of them (a few years too early) except for 3 Ruth's (a PSA 6 and 7 & a SGC 6.5) and a nice 8.5 Didrickson (there were three 8.5 Didricksons). I cracked out a few for re-grading in some instances. A couple of the Vines cards graded 8, one Ruth with the best centering but creases graded 2.5. Two Ruth's graded 7, plus three 6's and three 5's. All of the Ruth's were off center towards the bottom except for the 2.5. IMO, the best Ruth graded a PSA 6, so I cracked it out and SGC graded it a 6.5 (I still think it's better than that). The posted picture is from late 2014 and is missing a Didrickson, as I cracked out a couple cards during a couple year span to regrade back when it didn't cost a small fortune. Also posted is the SGC 6.5 that I believe was the best Ruth.

I still don't understand why those were the only cards in that toybox with so many duplicates. I don't think these cards were ever issued in packs. Why no Sport King Cobb's or regular issue 1933 baseball cards? I'd love to know that story.