If only one Old Judge HOF in a collection, which??
 

I would love suggestions from the Net54 group to my new quest - to add one Old Judge card to my collection of “playing days” HOFers.

Here are a few directional qualifiers:

1. Player must be in the HOF (the focus of my PC)
2. A great pose or image which non collectors would get a kick out of seeing (I often give mini tours of my collection and they all LOVE my N28 King Kelly with his killer stache!)
3. Reasonably affordable. A rare OJ with a premium cost just wouldn’t be possible.
4. Reasonably “findable” - like above, I have no problem owning and displaying a common OJ card if they otherwise meet this criteria.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Jeff

OJ
 

First thought would be Radbourn flipping the bird, but it has become quite pricey.

Ewing with Mascot hits all your needs and is both cheaper and more easily found.

Any of the Kelly cards with the "$10,000 Kelly" inscription.

Some HOFers have "sliding" poses that might fit your needs. Great suggestions by Fred and Webster too IMO.

The sliding poses are really awesome… I need to get more familiar with the available options.

Does anyone know if there are threads or Facebook pages that focus on OJ’s where images may be more plentiful?

Do a previous auction search fo OJ's on Heritage and REA, plenty of images to see.

OJ
 

Buy the OJ Book

(Almost) Every player, every pose, hours of fun for the whole family!

Old Hoss portrait

Cap Anson in uniform. Probably not in your budget, though.

I'm far from an OJ expert as I only collect Washington players, but I'm thinking that your least costly OJ HOFer might be Hank O'Day:

I got very lucky and found a used copy for $30. "Highly recommended" barely covers it.

It's qualities as a book runs from highly valuable reference, to fun coffee table book to flip through, to all-around quality read. You can spend hours with it, or flip to a specific reference point for a quick read.

I think the most important HOFer in the set, not the best player but the one who had the largest impact on the game, is John Ward. His cards are not as costly as some other HOFers so he might be someone to consider. Good luck!

I would second Ward. He was such an important part of the 19th century game. Ewing and Delahanty would be at the top of my list too, but Delahanty is probably on the more expensive side.

N172 choice
 

Nash and Radbourn- epic card!

Trent King

Whatever you do, get a strong image, the quality is highly variable.

King Kelly Boston portrait

Sometimes a challenge to hunt down a particular pose but Ewing with Mascot is fairly common and a great conversation piece.

Cap Anson or Buck Ewing since you already have a Kelly.

If I could only keep one OJ, it would be Connie Mack, probably pose 1 rhhh

This one checks a lot of your boxes...

Oh man, sooo many good ideas already… I love the Ewing with Mascot and the staged slide with Keefe (so campy, perfect!)

I do agree that above all else, a clear image is a must - I’ll gladly accept and great looking A, a pinhole or two over a really unclear image.

I may try and sneak to Philly later this week in hopes of landing one of these.

But please - keep the suggestions and discussion going. This is great!