Old Judge - Amos Rusie (395-1, Indianapolis) for Sale!
 

Old Judge Amos Rusie ("The Hoosier Thunderbolt") (395-1, Indianapolis) for sale. This is the scarcest image of Rusie and is one of only 2 or 3 known graded copies of this pose, who is one of the toughest HOFers to find in general. Fun fact about Rusie that many on here already likely know, in the twilight of his career, he was traded for a young pitcher... named Christy Mathewson.

Asking $2,000 due to the image scarcity, but open to offers/discussion if anyone is interested. Price is net to me and includes shipping. Thanks for looking, feel free to message with any questions!

Andy-why do you think there are only two know? Many Old Judges are not graded and plenty of Old Judges were graded before specific poses were identified on the slab. I have owned several copies over the years, none of which made it into a slab.

Well I didn't want to name you Jay haha, because I got this from you and you said you had only seen two, the two you had!

Andy, I don’t remember that but if I did I misspoke, or have seen others afterwards. I am going to check with a few other collectors to see if they have a copy just to make sure.

Jay says a lot of things when it's HIS card for sale.

Great salesman :)

Haha! To be fair, that's what I remember, but it was years ago and maybe you just said that you only had owned two Jay. I'll adjust description in case. Either way, its a rare one!

Andy--what I can say with some certainty is that it is Rusie's scarcest pose. I am contacting other collectors and going back through notes and will come back and post the number of different copies I can find.

I have gone through auction archives, checked the Smithsonian site and talked to several large collectors. Joe Gonsowski has checked the Burdick Collection, the HOF collection, the Ernie Harwell Collection,etc. Between us, we have located three copies of this pose, the 1890 NL copy pictured in the OJ book, the one being offered in this thread, and a copy sold several years ago in HA. This copy has the team designation scraped off the card. If that is all there is could make the pose one of the scarcest of all HOF poses, ranking it with the scarce Wright pose and ahead in rarity of Anson in Uniform. Old there be other voices--absolutely! There could be additional copies of any card. If anyone reading this has a copy of the pose please post an image here.
Interesting, I was right in my comment above. By some quirk of fate over the years I have owned all three of the copies that we have found. I knew it was a difficult pose, but I never realized how difficult.

Rusie Pose
 

Is this the pose you are looking for?

I bought this card about 30 years ago with seven other Old Judges (my first and only Old Judge cards in my collection).

David

It is--great card David. That is probably the nicest copy of the four we have now located.

Wow- thanks for the legwork Jay, that’s really cool. I looked back for the emails we had when I acquired it in 2018 or so, but couldn’t find them. This is really helpful.

Andy

Nice one!

+1