N173 Old Judge Cabinets

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

A recent post on N172 brought up the Lew Lipset quote that every N173 Old Judge Cabinet is more rare than a T206 Wagner, i.e., that there are probably less than 50 surviving examples of each N173. This seems accurate to me. What do you N173 collectors out there think? How tough is an N173 as opposed to an N566 Newsboy cabinet? And within the N173 cataegory, how much tougher are Dogs Head cabinets compared to non-Dogs Head? What percentage of N173s are black bordered? I consider myself lucky to have three N173s. Does anyone know what the largest accumulation of N173s might be? Just curious.

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Posted By: Julie

compared to the individual players in the OTHER 19th century sets you mentioned?



Lots of people's favorite card--but do you really think there are 50-60 of them out there? And N162 is a relatively common set.

I have one N173...

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I dont think theres a particular n173 thats even close to the population of a T206 Wagner.Just like you i consider myself lucky to have my 2 n173s

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

but had about 30-35 at one time. I know of at least a couple people who have 150-200 of them. I think that the scarcity of them is pretty much the way you said it. It seems to be even tougher to find the 'common' players. When I had 30-35, I had 3 black mounts, so I'm going with less than 1 out of 10 being black mounted or brown mounts. As far as Dogs Head, they are SCARCE SCARCE SCARCE. I'm sure there are far more qulaified people here to talk about them than me but they are scarcer than the dark mounted cabinets.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Thanks, Tom. I remember hearing that were collectors with more than 100 N173s but I never met one. You confirmed that I wasn't imagining things. It would be amazing to see 100-200 of these in one place.

As far as N162, they are, as Julie points out, "relatively" common compared to N173, but still tough to obtain. I guess I've seen about 20 N162 Kelly cards over 25 years at shows and in catalogs but I wouldn't want to speculate how many total copies there might be. I picked up 6 N162s at the 1996 National but I wasn't looking for N173s the, so I can't make a comparison about their availability at the time.

The relative rarity of various issues, both common and tough, has always interested me. I once suggested to VCBC that they assemble three or four veteran collectors, such as Lipset, Mastro, Lifson, etc. and have a discussion about their early experiences sifting through the many large collections and "finds" that they encountered. I think that only the collectors who have sifted through countless thousands of cards can make reliable guesses as to relative rarity of the tougher issues.

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Posted By: Anson

It's hard to say how many of anything is out there. But, almost all of the caramel issue HOFers have lower pop reports than the T206 Wagner

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Posted By: Shannon

What are the chances of having Old Cardboard mag. getting some of those veteran collectors together for a discussion on this topic and others. Maybe do a series of interviews on some of the tougher issues of cards.

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Posted By: Julie

cards, like Just Sos, 4BHs--where we can say with some certainty "there's only one Burkett, there're only 3 Kellys"--how would we know? (There're only 3 E-270 Jacksons...)

Even with those three examples, all we know is that only that many have SURFACED. I'm not sure there's any way to know that the numbers I gave are accurate. So, with other 19th century sets, and some 20th century (rare Caramels, for example), we can only guess. Somewhere maybe people are keeping mum about their cards...and you KNOW--that will never happen with the Wagner!

Every Wagner that's found gets "outed." (probably). But look what happened with the N173 discussion. I have one, someone has 2, someone else has three--and then all of a sudden, someone pops up with 35, and knows people with over 100.

It's going to be hard to come to any even vague conclusions, even with a lot of experts talking about it.

Be fun to listen to, though!

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Posted By: scott brockelman

does anyone collect the N173's on the local photographer mounts rather then the old judge mounts, they are the indentical photo, even with the goodwin and co. incscription in the photo, just on the mount of the photographer who originally shot them, Schoelten for example took the St. Louis N173 original photos.

any input?

scott

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Scott--I collect these. These cabinets show which local photographers took team pictures for Goodwin & Co. Here is a list of the ones I know:

Sioux City--Uhlman
St Paul--Uhlman
Chicago--Stevens
New York(Mets)--Jos Wood
New York(Giants)--Carroll (I have a Giant cabinet with a Carroll ad, not sure if they did all the Giants or if Jos Wood also did those)
Kansas City--Heyn
Cincinnati-Watson
St Louis--Scholten
Athletics--Gilbert & Bacon

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Scholten for Louisville
Wybrant for Louisville

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Tom--Do you think both photographers shot photos for Goodwin? Is it possible that one may have just been a reseller of the other ones images?

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

don't know about that but the photos were definitely used for the photos. The Tomney photos were on Wybrant mounts and most of the other guys were on Scholten mounts. Shannon might be a Wybrant mount. They are easily distinguished by the backgrounds. Scholten was in St. Louis and Wybrant was here in Louisville. I've only seen the one Wybrant and that is the Tomney I had......

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Posted By: Tom L.

Here is an example of a Brooklyn player taken by Baltimore photographer Walzl.
Clark cabinet photo by Walzl

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Tom--I've seen that cabinet but I've always assumed that that photographer was just marketing the image and wasn't the photographer who took Brooklyn photos.

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Posted By: Don J.

Jay,

Just won the Black Mount last night (found the N172 on someone's site); this is the first one of these I've picked up. Just wanted to confirm this is a N173 since there are no markings other than the copyright.

Thanks, Don J.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Don--It is not an N173. An N173 says Old Judge Cigarettes at the bottom of the mount. I saw that cabinet and I'm not sure what it is.

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Posted By: Don J

Anyone else have any ideas then?

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

about a month ago on ebay but it was on a trimmed N173 mount where Old Judge had been trimmed away. This is not an N173 as no ads like Jay said.

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Posted By: scott brockelman

don,

i think what tom stated may have some bearing, when you get the cabinet, inspect the mount, it appears new, probably a new black mount may have been used for a new host of the old photo, i know the back sure looks clean and the wrong texture or something. i have not seen one of these without the photographers ad on the back either.

could be wrong, but after tom's input, pieces are falling into place.

scott

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Posted By: Tom L.

Jay,

Hi. I don't know if that image was actually used in any of the Brooklyn OJs (N172 or N173), but the background is unquestionably the same one used in all of the original Baltimore OJ photos. I found that cabinet interesting - not so much from the perspective of post-1887 Brooklyn cabinets - but as likely identifying the photographer of all of the 1888-89 Baltimore photos as Walzl.

Thanks,
Tom

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Posted By: Don J

Thanks for the responses guys. Here's the description in the Ebay auction I won: "Original Goodwin and Company photograph of Sowders, pitcher for St. Paul. This is a Near Mint condition photographers proof mounted to a black mount, with no photographers markings or Old Judge advertisements. A few light scuffs on the mount, otherwise very nice. Guaranteed Original. Beautiful gold gilded edges and deep black mount."

Tom, here's the scan from your earlier auction. Might be the same cabinet, might not. The one I won seems a little more brownish but I'll have to see when I get it. It'll be interesting to see what the "gold gilded edge" look like.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Whether for light or dark colored mount, bevelled (cut at angle) and gold gilded edges, along with some text (usually for the photo studio) front and/or back would be standard for this time.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

My experience with Old Judge cabinets is that colored mounts have the same color front and back. This cabinet, in addition to having no photographer identification, does not have the front black color on the back. This doesn't mean that it is bad, just different.