Pre-war player collectors - biggest following?
 

I’m curious which pre-war players have the biggest collector following? Of course the biggest (Ruth, Cobb, Matty, Johnson, Young, etc) are on all of our want lists.

I’ve heard Brown has a bit of a cult following…. Any other pre-war high demand player collectors?

(Also learned at the National that some “type” collectors try to snag all the mustached players - who knew??)

Add Wagner to your list and you have the top tier.

Second tier includes but not limited to;

Lajoie, Speaker, Crawford, Plank, Collins, off the top of my head.

An offshoot of this question could be who has an unusually large following compared to their on field production.

Buck Weaver and other black sox.

King Kelly.

I am a Crawford only, guy...and I do throw our some posts here from time to time, so I might skew it a bit...but I will say when you check some of the larger auction offerings the Crawford items seem to be a lot less in quantity compared to some of the other guys...not sure if that means he is not quite as popular, or people are just holding on to his stuff!

Jeff and Phil, I'm surprised that Lou Gehrig isn't in either of your player lists. :confused:

Ten Million!

"Dummy" Hoy.

Not-on-topic detour, but I'm still amazed at the power Bo Jackson still holds on the hobby from collectors.

It's not just people 40+ years old that lived through the "Bo Knows" era, either. A lot of younger people have a very positive view of the guy and want him in their collection.

It helps that many of his cards are very affordable.

I know there are quite a few Hank Greenberg collectors out there. I always enjoy his section of Glory of Their Times too.

Ah yes! I knew I was missing some names, thank you Val.

I know a few collectors who collect Hal Chase specifically.

Rube Waddell seems to have a big following, although a HOFer in his own right.

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Joe Wood is another popular name for collectors.
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Hornsby & Foxx!

Say it aint so
 

What about Mr Joe Jackson???

Aside from Cobb, my Detroit guys are

Sam Crawford
Hughie Jennings
Hank Greenberg (I think he has the biggest following on this list)
Charlie Gehringer
Bob Veach (least following on this list)
Harry Heilmann
Mickey Cochrane

cult following
 

How about Eddie Grant, Addie Joss, Jim Thorpe or McGraw's boy Ross Youngs.

Not including player-specific back runs, I have collected/do collect: Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, Jackson, Plank, Mathewson, Young, Thorpe, Moonlight Graham.

Aside from Plank, who is special in his own right, I collected these guys bc I feel like they are the most investable, prewar players, likely to yield the best risk-adjusted return over time; you could probably add Walter Johnson and Cap Anson to that list, but I never chased either.

I have poked around with Lajoie, Gehrig, Delahanty, Kelly, and Speaker, but never really got into any to a major degree.

Postwar, which I don’t really collect, I would go for Jackie Robinson, Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Aaron.

I am slowly collecting Yogi Berra signed cards

For me:

Radbourn, Anson

Chase, Cobb, Brown, Donlin, Jennings, Mathewson, McGraw, Bill Donovan, Crawford, Jackson, Ruth, Berg, Greenberg

Mantle, Robinson, Campanella, Koufax, Bouton, Pepitone

I would just add the sub-set of Cuban/Negro leaguers.

Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, Wajo, Mathewson, Young; Wagner, Joe Jackson

Safe to say that anyone not yet mentioned here is flying under the radar and, thus, a possibly undervalued candidate to “invest in”.

Perhaps. But I would take the opposite position: players not yet mentioned are not flying under the radar. Rather, they are not widely collected, and thus, not ideal for investment. Or put differently, I am unlikely to bet money on (invest in) a player who hasn’t been mentioned, because I don’t think there is a broad/strong demand for that player (they are not popular). But as they say, opinions are like assholes…. And that’s just my opinion.

There's another pool of players who have few cards so when they do come up for sale there's competition. Ray Chapman for example. Playing days Casey Stengel cards are popular. Eddie Cicotte. Ten Million and the like.

When Greg mentioned Ten Million I didn’t get the reference but this made me go to google. Wow, that is amazing. I want one!

I think the real question is whether those not mentioned will continue to be overlooked, or if everyone will wake up one day and suddenly realize how amazing they really were.

My guess is that any positive change is likely to be driven by some good publicity. Think Alexander Hamilton. He was sorta known among a set of the populace that was into history, but not seriously known by the general public. But along comes a fancy new musical, and all of a sudden he’s got some crazy popularity.

So maybe your strategy should be to buy up most of the supply of a few under-loved players, and then create a musical that features those players and goes viral and takes the world by storm. Then you can slowly offload them at huge gains.

If you feature a few pitchers as your main characters, you could name it “Pitches be Trippin’”.

Or produce a commercial where Glavine and Maddux say chicks dig the fast ball.

I agree with your assessment, but as a type collector, I have to take what I can get sometimes. And lately, for me, it's been more mid tier HOF'ers as the top tier have gotten a bit more expensive than I want to pay.

I know he's not in the tier of many of the players mentioned above but Chief Bender has a fair number of collectors (I'm one of them!).

Lefty
 

Lefty Grove is also highly collected, and i always look for his cards. One of the all-time great pitchers (number 6 all-time WAR)!! Have a couple of his Diamond Star, the goudeys, and the US Caramel.

Others that dont stand out statistically but are clearly popular with a subset of prewar collectors…..Among many others I also collect Jewish ballplayers, mostly because when i got involved in the hobby it was a nice small subset with interesting cards that helped me learn prewar (it was overwhelming…still is at times. Especially compared to growing up with one Topps set a year).

Also collect the “deaf” guys, Dummy Hoy and Taylor. I use hearing aids today (to great effect), and admire the accomplishments of those from an era with no help available at all. I might have been a Dummy in another era.

I would post more pictures, but the images i have stored on my phone no longer seem to upload as of the last month or so. I used to be able to choose file size to upload, then that stopped. Now i cant upload at all, it gets rejected. Leon? What happened?

How Bout Sum Love Fir "BiG Ed Walsh" :D

For me it’s always been Wagner, Lajoie, Matty and Weaver.
I’m just glad I picked up the Ten Million Obak card in EX for $50 25 years ago :)

It is a fun card. 25 years ago I believe his legal name was Quarter Million.


Brian

Let's not forget Charlie Brown's favorite card.. The comps are amazing.

Greenberg, Berg, Pelty, Gehrig, Ruth, Wagner, Cobb, Buck Weaver
Mantle, Robinson.

Did I mention Greenberg?

Brian

One of my favorite Bender associated items...

https://luckeycards.com/benderpc2.jpg