Southern cards "find"? When was it made?
 

Thanks --- Larrie Dean

Depends
 

Depends on which Southern Find...T213s??...T207/T215 Red Cross??...Jerry

Finds
 

Jerry,

Just speaking for myself, I would like to hear about all of those.

Any chance of a photo?

He's probably talking about the "Southern Cards Find", as it was called that pre dates all of those. A company called Southern Cards that advertrised in the old SCD paper/magazine found a large number of uncirculated T206's (1000+). They originally walked into a Mall Show (card show held inside a shopping Mall). at the end of the 1980's or very beginning of the 1990's, so ~1988-1991. I can't recall the exact date, but I purchased dozens of cards directly from them and some whenever they ended up with dealers at subsequent shows. After decades of learning about T206, and understanding the circumstances of the find from at least one person involved I would guess that the cards had been taken home from one of the packing factories before being inserted into the packs, i.e. factory 25. In the group that I am aware of, there were Piedmont 150-350 series, Piedmont 350 only series, Sovereign 150-350 series, and Old Mill Southern League. These are all factory 25 backs. There was a second group that I never saw any cards from, that's why I stated 1000+ cards as I think there were two halves, each with 800-1000.

added: The term "Southern Find" was originally used for this group, minus the word "Cards" from that company's name. Later finds of tobacco cards in the south (Southern US) were also unimaginatively called "Southern Finds" so there is an intermingling of names. The other one that is usually referenced on this forum are cards from Louisiana.

So they’re all minty fresh since they were never circulated?

Correct, the late Marco Rol was the purchaser of those cards and that was because it was the name of his store. IIRC it was late 1988 or early 1989

And in my best Cycleback work
 

Back to back posts

we've discussed this on Net 54 before

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=257327

T213s
 

Webster, the T213 "Southern Find" which has been discussed by tbob/Bob Marquette a few times here took place in the early 1980s...a gentleman from Louisiana sold a bunch of T213 type 2 and 3 to John England, Rickard Delong, Bob and my Mom...Bob can recount the story better than I can since I was still in elementary school...the other I was referring too take place in the summer of 2010 and consisted of a few previously uncatalogued T207 Red Cross backs along with some T215 Red Crosses...here are what was the last of the T213 find...Jerry

When I went to the original 2018 thread about the "Southern Find" and saw the PSA 10 McGraw, I was struck by how odd it looked to me.

I've gotten so accustomed to seeing such cards with wear and rounded corners that a pristine, out-of-the-pack example is jarring. But it reinforces the thought of how amazing it would have been to hold those fresh out of a pack.



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The T213 Southern Find
 

Jerry is right when he says The Southern Find was from the mid 1980s. I received a call from John England (RIP) a well known collector who owned a local card shop and who said he did not have the necessary cash to buy the entire collection. The seller was a rather random guy from Louisiana who had an enormous group of T213-2s and T213-3s. He happened to be in Arkansas and contacted John through his card shop. The cards were in vg to exmt condition generally with a small number lesser. The 4 of us took turns selecting cards, we would start with the HOFers and work our way to the "commons." Example, there were, approximately 20 Ty Cobbs, 20 Walter Johnsons, etc. so each would pick 5 of the Cobbs, 5 Johnsons etc. We went on the order 1,2,3,4, 4,3,2,1 and so on. I started with T213-3s of each player and so ended up with a complete set of T213-3s, half of which were overprinted backs. The others were drawn toward the more colorful T213-2s with their glossy front.
I can tell you I wound up with 3 T213-3 Cobbs all in excellent condition. I sold one through Net 54 20+ years later, traded one for an olive E94 Honus Wagner in excellent condition about 10 years ago, and sold the last along with the rest of the complete set to Bill Mastro in the early 90's, a huge mistake based on what the set would sell for these days. I sold my near set of T213-2s plus a ton of duplicates to Mastro in the early 90's.
I don't remember how many cards in total but I would estimate 250-300 T213-3s and about around 2000 T213-2s. We paid $10,000 for the cards. He was thrilled and to be quite honest, in the middle 1980s there weren't many collectors collecting the Coupon cards. All 4 of us eventually sold off the cards over the years.
Imagine $10,000 for the whole lot and nowadays you could easily get $10,000 for just one ex/exmt T213-3 Ty Cobb.
It was amazing to sit there and hold on to all the many Cobbs, Johnsons, Mattys, LaJoies etc. We never heard from the seller again although he mentioned that he had a ton of more cards from Lousiana with "Victory" on the backs. My God, we should have offered to fly down there and buy them all!
This was THE Southern Find, not the one mentioned above....
Post Script- if the name John England sounds familiar, he is the guy who sold his personal collection to Larry Fritsch for north of 1 million dollars before Larry passed away many years ago.

Thanks Bob, I remembering reading about your participation in this find previously, nice to see it again. It is the stuff that prewar collecting dreams are made of. Hopefully you are enjoying recollecting the T213-2 set the more traditional, slower way.

Brian (included a random scan of a beat-up T213-2 Hummell that I like to identify as the "T213-2 scan find of the mid 2020's")

Great thread! On the subject of great finds, I would also love to hear the full story of the E105 Mello-Mint find. I have read a short detail or two over the years from Scott Brockelman, but I’m very interested in the complete account.

Thanks, Bob, for the interesting rcount of The Southern Find. I wonder if my T213-3 of WaJo that I got from a dealer at one of the Nationals 25+ years ago came from this Find.

Thats a great story Bob. I can't imagine the feeling of splitting up those cards. What a blast. Love hearing the background surrounding these types of finds. My three Matty's.