[danmckee]

I posted this on another board but thought I would share it here as well, it is kind of a neat little story:

"Ugly Little R337s" aka Eclipse Import of New York Babe Ruth

Post by r337man on Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:04 pm
My dear friend, the late Bob Bostoff ran Empire State Sports out of New York. He was a great guy and a hobbyist to his credit!

For years the R337 set was known as anonymous until Bob bought a full strip with a salesman sample card at the top at a Richmond show from Rand Bailey. Bob did an article in the SCD titled "Ugly Little R337s" hence my title here to give credit to my deceased friend.

Though we were friends, Bob had promised the strip to an avid collector just before I got to Bob. I was heart broken not to get this strip that identified the anonymous set as being issued by Eclipse Import Corporation of New York.

I never knew nor asked who the collector was that beat me to the punch but many years later in a Legendary Auction that featured the fabulous collection of Chad Dryer, there was a lot of uncut "W" series full strips.

Low and behold the missing R337 strip was hidden in there!!!!

Needless to say I won the lot and at a fraction of what I would have paid for it as the significance of the R337 strip was never mentioned.

Bob felt bad not selling me the strip and later found me a single salesman ad card of Lefty Grove which he sold me.

Then in January of 2012 a NET54 member found a partial R337 ad strip with a Babe Ruth salesman sample card on it. He posted on NET54 and then consigned it to Heritage auctions. Well I just had to have it and it cost me a fortune thanks to my good friend Garysportscards running me to the moon on it.

This is one of my all time favorite sets, they are ugly, scarce, and not popular! Perfect!