Rube Waddell C. 1910 notebook cover
 

Picked this up on ebay tonight, mainly because I thought it looked great! Does anybody have any information about these notebook covers? I was also wondering why it mentions "proof" on the label. I've seen a few notebook covers for sale on the BST but haven't seen one before that looked like this. Thanks guys!

An uncut sheet was sold via Mastro or Legendary then then someone cut it up into the individual covers. The whole sheet was deemed a proof. I'm not aware of examples other than came from the proof, so they are rare.

Very nice pickup Jeff!!

Thanks for the info, maybe this is a one-of-a-kind!

Here is the link to the original 2002 auction of the uncut sheet of these...
http://legendaryauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=24049

Thanks Scott, that link answers all of my questions. I can tell by the placement of the crease my Waddell is the top one!

REA confirmed cut up, one of each example in a lot. Shame someone did that. :(

Link

I wonder why they were cut to be cropped so close to the blue. I'd have to imagine that a small white boarder was originally intended?

Hard to tell how they were supposed to be cut. Were a lot of tablets bound by a strip of tape, perhaps explaining the bottom/top spaces? But I don't know how they were intended to be cut.

They are neat-looking items, no questioning that.

I think all the notebooks are neat. I can see why someone would collect them. Would make an interesting display.

Are you guys sure this was a proof? The left side is creased like you would expect it to be if someone opened and used this notebook. Seems like an odd place for an unused notebook cover to have a crease.

Nevermind. I just looked at the original auction. Looks to be the same Waddell.

like mentioned earlier, these were all recently (about 10 years ago) cut into individual pieces (by Henry Yee) from a larger 27" X 30" sheet. There are 3 of ea. player known (15 total). Some are nice EX+ looking, some have various degrees of damage with a couple having heavy damage. I once owned a Criger that was really beat up. Quite a few of these 15 cut covers have been sold and resold many many times over the last 10 years.

Cobb, Waddell, Mathewson, Young, Criger

here is a 10 year old post about them, and when they were discovered to have been cut from the sheet by Yee
http://www.net54baseball.com/archive...p/t-61804.html

Frank, that's great - I remember that thread as if it were yesterday!

This by Julie was classic: If I'd had the money, I would have bid on it too. WHATEVERITIS.