New T206 Doyle NATL Coming to REA
 

Thanks for posting.

As I've said before in other threads, there are more Wagner cards out there than people realize. There's a mindset of folks who think that all Wagners have now been accounted for, and that all are graded. These people cannot conceive of how anyone would have such a card and not sell it or slab it. I concede that the Doyle Natl's are a bit more elusive because it isn't obvious that it's a seldom seen variation; Wagner is a bit more recognizable. But until a few months ago, this Doyle Natl wasn't 'known' and wasn't graded. It seems likely that there are still a few Wagners out there in the hands of someone who knows what they have, yet they don't want to sell it nor slab it. And maybe someone has a scrapbook of old ball cards that have been handed down from a great grandfather... that has cards yet to be seen or known by the likes of us.

Maybe it's like Fox and Mulder said, The Truth is Out There.

Agree 110%.

A couple of years ago, I bought 4 1909 Colgan's Chips square proofs; Wagner, Joss, Chase and Baker. All 4 came from one woman who was selling stuff that her grandmother had tucked away. Are they incredibly valuable? No, but most collectors have never seen one before and I doubt many have seen one grouping of 4 cards together. They are fairly rare in my estimation and they remained hidden away in a family collection for 110+ years.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 1919 World Series program from Game 1. Again, another item sitting in a family collection forever, hidden from the collecting world. I'll bet there's not 20 of them left in the world. Quick research shows that only 3 or so have been auctioned off since 2014.

There's still good quality, rare stuff out there...lurking in forgotten drawers or family scrapbooks. Now, we just have to flush it all out.

Still a wow.

Over 110 years old new discovery of a rare error card that is so valuable.

These new discoveries are great and they add to the mystique of collections and what moght still be out there that people and families do not realize they have.

It does not hurt the collection because so few are “discovered” there is a greater demand than the supply.

REA does it again!

yes they do

and their preview pages are full of amazing cards and high grade and eye appeal

WOW

Very nice looking example.

I purchased what was listed as a one of one card a few months ago, hadn't been publicly seen since 2014, sure enough REA has a second example up for auction next week.

A few weeks ago, on this board, a newly discovered one of one T206 Chase Broad Leaf 460 showed up, it was part of an original collection put together in the 1910s.

It's fun to think about what great items are still tucked away out there.

Oh, I agree, stuff is out there. To us it is the world; to 99.99999% of the world, it is dusty crap in an attic, basement or garage. I go to a lot of flea markets and paper shows and estate sales, and sometimes I see what is clearly the remnants of someone's estate: photos, papers, cards, etc. Gives me pause to think that this hoard of material represents an accumulation of a life, or maybe more than one life, consigned to a dusty bin in a parking lot. Then again, I also think sometimes that this item sat around for 50-75-100+ years waiting for me to find it and preserve it and appreciate it. The Greatest Generation and Silent Generation are in their dying years now and their stuff is starting to emerge. I am not at all surprised that childhood collections accumulated in the prewar era are still emerging and yielding 'new' T cards, probably courtesy of children or grandkids of those generations. Or maybe I am just contemplating this stuff because my parents died last summer and my daughter and I are still in the process of liquidating their stuff. Alas, no T cards, but lots of toilet paper (my father hoarded batteries, TP and tissues; I found hundreds of batteries, 100+ rolls of TP, and thousands of tissues and baby wipes when clearing out their stuff).

But I digress...

One of the humbling (and fun) things about collecting cards, especially those with an international base like boxing or soccer, is that there is always more out there to be discovered, so you are never complete and you never know it all about those issues. You also cannot assume that the 1 of 1 remains so.

the amazing thing to me when thinking about really rare prewar issues is thinking about how many examples of cards were probably literally tossed in the trash, either right when they came out, or over the years as kids aged and left home, and parents tossed things out, especially long before these cards were known to be valuable.

i've just started collecting the M101-2 set, and the paper stock is super fragile and thin. its amazing to me that ANY copies of those survived 100+ years. then you think about something like T206, where millions of copies were produced, and 99% of them were just tossed in the trash. so many cobbs, mattys, cy youngs just discarded like they were nothing. because at that time, to most people, they were nothing.

Link please?
I did not see any previews for the auction

If you go to their facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/RobertEdwardAuctions) or other social media sites they post "First Looks" every couple days of items coming up for auction.

I believe this brings the known count to 10. Perhaps more pop up, but I doubt many; any way you slice it, this will always remain, hands down, the toughest piece to completing the 524 set. Also interesting is the grade. My old Doyle was an SGC 4 that I crossed to PSA at a 3.5 (solely for registry purposes). My 4 was highest graded, meaning that this card is now (tied for) highest graded. Will be fun to watch

I bet there are at least several more examples of this Doyle card tucked away in T206 sets that have just been sitting around for a long time. It wasn't a known error and could be easily overlooked.

"several" might be a stretch.

Well there weren't any until someone noticed the addition of Nat'L. It stands to reason that if no one was looking for the variation until pretty recently, they wouldn't always know they have it either. Kind of like how the Cycle Matty T205 error was unnoticed for a long time and then people found out they had it in their collection.

I see via search the first one was discovered in the 80s. But I only heard about this card in the last 10 or 15 years after one came up for sale in a major auction. Not sure how widespread knowledge of it is when it comes to old collections.

If we knew how many Doyles that Fritsch went through, then maybe we could ballpark it.

I wonder how many Doyle NATLs they still have that we don't know about.

We find new stuff all the time; new batches and old collections are constantly entering the hobby. Most of them don't have anything as expensive as a Doyle, but previously unknown things surface pretty much every year

I suspect this card is more prevalent than others in the 'unknown' population. It's less famous, it's a thing only someone who knows T cards would even look for, and it was completely unknown until the 1980's. It's also probably going to be the easiest expensive T card to convincingly fake as one only has to remove the Nat'l and I have little doubt we will see many more of them in 30 years.

"It's also probably going to be the easiest expensive T card to convincingly fake as one only has to remove the Nat'l and I have little doubt we will see many more of them in 30 years."


Greg, the rare variation has "Nat'l" on it. The common card has it omitted.

I know this. And yet, clearly, I do not and did it wrong. I will not edit out my immense stupidity lol. Of course, one would only need to add, not remove, the "Nat'l".

Doyle
 

The REA will be incredible once again. Good luck to all! Trent King

Or not so convincingly easy to fake

http://www.t206museum.com/page/periodical_5.html

Any idea what the outcome of the lawsuit was?

I never tire from telling this story:my family and I were in Cooperstown on ‘84 or ‘85. Mr pulled up to a new store billed as the Baseball Card Museum. Place was still being painted, but we met a big man outside and he invited us in. It was Larry Fritsch himself. We saw all these cards. We saw the Wagner and the Doyle.

So Larry must have thought my dad was a player. He invited us in the back room and showed us all these raw cards. We were sitting at his office and he pulls another “Doyle” out. He offers it to my dad for 5k. Dad politely declined

We spent my paper route money on Evers, Chance, Matty and Red Cobb. I took the lesser Cobb for $25 less. Paper loss on the back. A decision that bothers me to this day.

Joe Doyle N. Y. Nat'L variation......
 

Imagine pulling a Joe Doyle Nat'L card from a pack when you were a teenager. Or, your Dad's visit to Atlanta in 1910, in which he acquired a Ty Cobb/TY COBB card for you ?

One of the most unique T206 collections in the hobby is on display at the University of Georgia (Athens). Former Georgia Senator Richard Russell's collection of approx. 1000
tobacco cards were donated to Georgia U. in 1983 (along with Russell's historical papers).
Russell was an avid BB fan as a youngster. At the age of 13 (1910), he started smoking cigarettes (PIEDMONT was the available brand in his area of Georgia). He pulled 100's
of T206 cards from the packs he purchased as a teenager. His T206 set has 497 different cards. No Wagner or Plank in his collection. Not unusual, since these two T206's were
not marketed with PIEDMONT cigarettes (only SWEET CAPORAL else where).

His teenage smoking habit came to an abrupt end in the Fall of 1911 when his parents enrolled him into Gordon Military Institute. It's my impression that his BB card collecting
also ended at that point (judging from the few T205 cards in his collection).

For more info, you can check out this thread posted in 2008......Senator Russell's collection incl. Joe Doyle error & Ty Cobb back

And, here's the link to an excellent website regarding Russell's collection...... http://baseballcards.galib.uga.edu/about/


Please do not misconstrue my intent here.....I'm not taking anything away from Larry Fritsch regarding his Joe Doyle N. Y. Nat'L find in the early 1980's.
I used to visit with Larry up in Cooperstown at his museum back in the 1980's. We were old friends.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Ted - do you ever show case your collection? I have 3 weeks off in August and I’d drive over to you in PA and buy you lunch and dinner for a visit!

How was Larry? He was sort of this Larger Than Life kind of guy…at least to 12 year old me, he was. Man, I remember that day with dad. What a great memory.

Doyle is already up to $350k and the auction just opened.

Joe Doyle N. Y. Nat'L variation
 

Hi Kevin

You'll get a "kick" out of this......

HOF weekend 1989, we dined at the Pepper Mill Inn in Cooperstown. The hostess set us up in their Greenhouse dining room. At one end of this dining
room sat Larry Fritsch (6-foot-6 tall), and at the other end of this dining room sat Dallas Green (6-foot-5 tall).

When we were through eating, we joined Larry, and asked him why you two big guys were situated at opposite ends of the dining room ?

Larry responded...."I guess the hostess situated Dallas and I at opposite ends of the room in order to balance out the weight in room" :)
He certainly had a great sense of humor.


I appreciate your lunch/dinner offer, however I haven't shown-off my collection in years. Simply because, my Grandson Ron (in Maine) owns a lot of it.
But, you can see (and hear about) my collection by tuning in to my various threads which I have posted on Net54 since 2005.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Always read your stuff. Wish I invested more in my collection then blowing all that money on wine, women and song…

Settled at $1,323,000

It was at $800k last night before extended bidding.

I honestly thought it might go a bit higher. I wonder if all the caveats about how it was removed from the scrapbook impacted the bidding?

Seems like a distinct possibility.

Another possibility:

I'm not much of a T206 collector, so don't hate me for saying this, but $1.3M+ is already a hell of a lot of money...

Ha, sure. But this card is also like 5 times more rare than a Wagner

still amazed at the price considering it is not a Wagner and yes it is rare but it one of the most expensive "error" cards

As someone who recently sold a psa 3.5, I think last night’s price was pretty spot on.

It’s a hell of a card and the key to having a complete 524 set of the greatest card set of all time. I climbed that mountain and my set is retired and preserved on the registry, which is why I ultimately chose to exit the investment.

Congrats to the winner. Not many can’t say they held, let alone owned, a t206 Doyle NY Natl

I guessed at $1.2 million but wasn't surprised it went a little more than that.

It will be interesting if the dozen or so examples of this card start showing up more often at auction houses. I believe there have been 2 at auction in the last 3 years but please fact check that. Point is there aren't many times you can pick one of these up!

the interesting thing to me when it comes to these ultra rare, insanely expensive cards is the mindset of the person who doesn't own one, wants to own one, and has the money to afford one.

they are exceedingly rare, and they dont come up for auction frequently. so, when one does surface, it must take real restraint to not just do whatever is needed to get one. if you can afford $1.3m for a baseball card, you can probably afford $1.5m or $2m or $3m, right? like, if you were the underbidder on this card last night, is your thought "eh, another will pop up soon and I can try again?"

Or maybe, "I can totally totally swing $1.3M, but at $1.4M, that's just ludicrous."

I think at least some people who worked their way towards that kind of wealth are disciplined and won't necessarily go over their limit just because they can.

I like where your head is at.

But I'm not convinced that the filthy rich are any more disciplined than the rest of us poor slobs. Maybe I've just known too many rich people who seem like they are just as human as the rest of us.

My inclination is to suspect that the underbidder here probably decided to stop when it hit $1M. Then decided "what the hell, I can stretch a little more", and bid again. A little later, made the same decision, and all of a sudden it's up to $1.3M, at which point the underbidder decided they were done.

Everyone has their limit. One of the billionaires said if you watch your pennies you don't have to watch your dollars.
.

I've often wondered why anyone who can totally afford whatever they want--and I mean totally, as in no amount of money they could spend in any sports auction would mean anything to them--stops bidding on something or things they set their sights on. I've decided it must be that at some point, they start feeling stupid for continuing way above what their information tells them an item is worth. But even then, if I was in their position, I think I could fairly easily convince myself that what seems like a ludicrous bid today could likely turn into a good or even great investment over time, given the history of rare stuff in the hobby. In the end, of course, the bidding always stops somewhere, and it's fascinating to ponder "why?"

I suspect billionaires don't care about baseball card ROI. Not that they aren't investment conscious -- just that a card of Wagner or Cobb, however its price moves, is going to be pretty inconsequential relative to just buying the Pirates or the Tigers.

You don't think that the guy who paid 738k each for two Michael Jordan RCs cares that he can buy them now for around 160k? There has been a pull back on a lot of cards recently. Modern has dropped dramatically, post war vintage, a little. Billionaires aren't going to blindly bid in this environment when they see what happened to those who did in the last few years. If this was Ruth, Wagner or Cobb, you can justify going hard after something you want. For a common player, I think recent trends do come into play.

If he's a billionaire, yes, I think he doesn't care about losing 1 million. I also don't think the sort of person who becomes a billionaire is the sort of person who is inclined to pay 1000% more for something as common as a junk wax era base card than what it was selling for a couple of years earlier. Let alone do so twice.

Yes, and that's exactly my point. The price of any card is inconsequential to these whales, so why would they ever stop bidding on one they want? But something does make them stop, and that's what I find of interest.

Logic. They generally aren't billionaires by luck.
.

Beat me to it. I was going to say 'They didn't get to be billionaires by not caring about money'

Some of the time that’s true. Paul Allen might be one of the many exceptions to the rule.

You might be surprised where Peter's head is