What's the story behind Leland's Zeenut lot
 

Does anyone know what was so special about that lot of 300 Zeenuts in Leland's auction?

https://auction.lelands.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=96000

The lot included Coveleski and Southworth, which I need for my collection. So I was hoping to buy the lot for a few thousand, sell off what I didn't want, and hopefully come out ok. Boy was I naive. The lot sold for nearly $45,000. Was there a Ruth rookie hidden in there somewhere? Or were those Zeenuts just a whole lot more valuable than I ever imagined? Many of the better cards like Heilman had writing on front -- I thought that would bring the value way down.

I would be willing to pay almost half the hammer for the Coveleski alone. The only other 1915 Heilmann I’ve ever seen sold for $15k. Those two cards are your answer. Everything else is just gravy. That was a sick lot, but closed right around where it should have. The Southworth wasn’t even highlighted as a major component of the lot, but I assure you that helped with the price as that card (assuming no writing on it) would also fetch another $1.5 to $2k. With 300+ cards in the lot, there is plenty of resale value, even for the commons. My guess is that a very knowledgeable member of Net54 won that lot....likely one with an extensive collection of Zeenuts.

That was a great lot. On the opposite vein, the Zeenuts in HA seemed quite low. I got the 1917 Mensor at what I thought was less than 1/2 what it would go for. Same for whoever got the 1918 Mensor, only one bid on it, the 1912 Bancroft, and the 1917 Calvo. I figured all these lots would go near double what they did. I wish I had more money, those were some bargains.

It seems as if Zeenut HOF prices have been down lately and I was hoping that was going to translate to that lot and I could get it for less than $20K, and boy was I naïve, as well. I was only going to keep Covaleski, Southworth and Heilmann, and whatever card represented an upgrade. Then sell off the lower grade card.

I thought that both 1918 O'Douls (Heritage, Leland's), going for over $3k each was pretty strong. Definitely an extra ordinarily rare card, and a super popular player. I was surprised by those prices, however.

Thanks everyone for the info. I've been looking for the Coveleski for a long time but had no idea it was a 20K card. I guess I'll cross that one off my list and put it in the unobtainable category.

I don’t think it is a $20K card, there just haven’t been any that have come up for sale in a long time so there were bidders going all in because they don’t know when the next will come up for sale. If a few were to come up for sale over the next few years the price will come down. Nothing special about Stan Covaleski vs other HOFers, in fact he is a pretty low caliber HOFer. I actually thought the ODouls would go for a bit more but having two ending in 2 days after not seeing one come up for sale in the last decade actually kept the price down to be honest. I collect Zeenuts and I was also pretty surprised at the lot price, especially given the writing on the front of the 1915 Heilmann, which is one of the stranger looking poses in the Zeenut series (I’ve never been a fan of that pose, I much prefer the 1913 Heilmann)

they have zeenuts on chin...