1899 M101-1 SPORTING NEWS M101-1 HONUS WAGNER ROOKIE
This is a dream piece - and frankly, was only a fantasy piece in my mind up until this past year! I knew of the extremely rare M101-2 Sporting News Supplements offered a decade later, and instantly fell in love with them (more on those later). I heard of the M101-1 Sporting News supplements from 1899-00, and heard they had some star players such as Napoleon Lajoie, but never even did any research on them, because with as rare as the M101-2s are, the M101-1s are wildly more rare.
One day when I was scrolling on the internet, I found someone posted this. My heart stopped. My jaw dropped. My eyes popped out of my head. How on earth did I not know that Honus Wagner had an M101-1, and how on earth am I seeing it in someone's collection instead of the Hall of Fame???
I reached out, asking if it was for sale, and it was! It took about a week, but we hammered out a deal for the most beautiful example I've ever seen of this (I've only seen about 6 others in the sales history ever, and most have chunks cut out). It is quite a bit more rare than the T206 Wagner that was created a decade later, and it is considered his rookie. This is graded as authentic altered, because a professional paper conservator carefully removed it from a damaged frame.
The owner of a real T206 Wagner has inquired about it being for sale. I don't know why, but that in and of itself is exciting to me! The fact that this was released in 1899 bridges a very interesting gap between the 19th century guys and the big guys of the early 20th century, and the fact that it is a decade older than the T206 Wagner is crazy. I have a longer write up of it here:
https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2020/0...er-rookie.html
1909 T206 GREEN TY COBB
Ty Cobb has four offerings in the T206 set, but the Green Background is the most sought after. I was fortunate enough to get this right at the beginning of the pandemic. It is free of creases, has great corners, and a beautiful dark green background. The card is penalized with a harsh grade mainly due to a few light specks on the front (which show up much more on scan, than in person!), and a small bit of paper loss on the back. The eye appeal gives many examples I've seen in higher grades a run for their money, which is exactly what I look for!
A couple days ago, this BVG altered green Cobb sold for nearly $800. I suspect it was trimmed! It goes to show you how highly coveted these Cobbs are, even without the striking green background.
Here is mine!
1910 E90-2 HONUS WAGNER
When I first laid my eyes on this card, my jaw dropped, and I knew I wanted to try and find one for my collection, but being nearly as rare as the T206 Wagner, I figured that would be difficult. Then, the right one came along. This is a survivor of my sell off - that's how much I love it. It features artwork based upon the same Carl Horner portrait that the T206 Wagner is based off of. Its striking candy blue background really pops, too! Like the Cobb above, the eye appeal of this one out paces many higher graded examples, thanks to a small bit of paper loss on the reverse.
1909-1913 M101-2 SPORTING NEWS TY COBB/HONUS WAGNER, SHOELESS JOE JACKSON, & WALTER JOHNSON/GABBY STREET
When I first heard of these beauties, I instantly fell in love. They are roughly 8x10 in size, and the PSA POP report on each are 4 or less. They are showstoppers! The first shows baseball history's best pitcher with his mentor. The 2nd shows perhaps the best picture ever of Shoeless Joe Jackson. Seriously, take a look at the mugs of what would be considered by many to be his top 3 cards. I love each one of them, but I'm not sure he'd have much luck with the ladies if he used any of them for an online dating profile.
The third shows a young Ty Cobb shaking hands with the veteran Honus Wagner in the 1909 World Series. A true passing of the torch moment - that is, after Wagner dominated the series!
As recounted in this article here:
https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2020/0...-beauties.html , I talked about how I lost out on a near complete set of these, but the buyer ended up breaking them up, and I was able to get my 3 favorites. The sepia tone, the clear players, and the faded backgrounds all work beautifully together.
1915 CRACKER JACK TY COBB
Before my first sell off, this card was my #1 most wanted card, and pulled the trigger on an altered version. It was clean, had razor sharp edges/corners, and was simply beautiful. Then I ran into this one. Rounded corners, perhaps a bit darker/bolder colors, and caramel staining. I opted to keep this one and sell the altered, as I prefered the caramel and deeper colors on this one. The caramel tells a story of how this came right out of a box of the delicious treat that is sung about in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".
Imagine a baseball fan sitting in the stands during World War I, and pulling a card of the best player on the planet ... THIS card ... from a box of Cracker Jacks. It was surely was a red letter day for someone just as it was for me to put this WWI era relic in my collection. Few cards out there rival how iconic this is!
1915 CRACKER JACK SHOELESS JOE JACKSON
This card is a dream come true for me. I have people regularly checking in to see if this is for sale more than most of the other cards I have, except perhaps one. It is the king of Cracker Jack cards, and among the most iconic cards ever produced. It is also the most well known card of a guy who has very few cards available. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and others all spoke highly of Jackson, alluding to the possibility of him being the best.
It doesn't get any better than high praise from the best players in baseball history! Being kicked out of baseball would be akin to Mike Trout never playing another game now. Shoeless Joe Jackson had many more productive years ahead of him which were never realized, due to the biggest scandal in baseball history.
1919-21 W514 STRIP CARD SHOELESS JOE JACKSON
To me, the Cracker Jack Shoeless Joe Jackson is king, but the mystique around this card is astronomical. This is what I call the Black Sox Shoeless Joe Jackson card. It features him as a member of the White Sox, and was produced/released around the same time of the 1919 World Series. My thoughts are that the artwork was perhaps created in 1919, and was actually produced in 1920. More on that later, but to me, this is a tangible piece of baseball history's biggest scandal ever, featuring baseball royalty...someone who the very best to play the game considered the best.
This card has a personal history as well.
In 2019, when I discovered this card existed, I set out to search for one. With a PSA POP report of less than 70, (that is less than the Cracker Jack!) I knew I'd be fighting an uphill battle given its historical significance. People don't exactly want to give this card up, and they rarely surface. I found someone on a forum who had this as their avatar, and decided to ask if it was for sale. As I suspected, he said no. Then several months later, he agreed to it! I was jumping-out-of-my-skin excited.
Unbeknownst to me, I made the purchase on the 100 year anniversary of the last game of the 1919 World Series - to the EXACT day! Shoeless Joe hit a home run in that game, as well. I can't even fathom calculating what the odds are that would happen! Once the "once in a lifetime" opportunity to land the Cracker Jack Shoeless Joe Jackson happened, I decided to sell this one. Over the next year, I opened up the text messages of the guy I sold it to, contemplating asking if I could buy it back. I thought better of it each time, and never did. Then he posted it for sale himself. We did a deal, and it is back home again - a true boomerang card!
1919-21 W514 STRIP CARD BABE RUTH
There is something magical about this set. I am not a huge fan of most strip cards, but the W514 set has a lot going for it. This Babe Ruth is also a boomerang card, in that I sold it and got it back later!
The thing that makes this card perhaps the most intriguing of all Babe Ruth cards is not that it is likely his first Yankees card, but his sleeves. The bottom of the card shows him as a member of the Yankees, meaning the card had to have been produced after 1919, but his sleeves are red, meaning the artwork may have very well been produced during the time he was a member of the Red Sox in 1919. If Babe Ruth had an official "Curse of the Bambino" card, this would be it!
This is a tangible piece of baseball history that perfectly captures baseball's largest seismic shift - when the Red Sox were "the" team winning championships to the precise moment in time (and reason for) the Yankees becoming "the" team, going from winning no championships to winning more championships than any other team, ever. Here is an article I wrote about it:
https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2019/1...ball-card.html
1933 WORLD WIDE GUM BABE RUTH
If you close your eyes and think of a Babe Ruth card, the one that probably comes to mind is the 1933 Goudey #144 full body Ruth. It is perhaps the most well known card of the most well known baseball player in history. Last year, I had a PSA 1 that was wrinkled and had some staple indentations, among other issues. I was on a mission to find a nicer copy, and ran into a card that is nothing short of spectacular. 1933 World Wide Gum is considered the Canadian Goudey, as it is virtually the same card with the same iconic front, but with a Canadian back. I've written more about it here:
https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/1933-w...-gum-babe-ruth
The Goudey has over 1,400 graded in the PSA POP report, whereas the World Wide Gum has less than 100. The extreme difference in rarity wasn't the reason I decided to go with this example, though. It is the fact that it appears drastically undergraded. The centering, coloring, etc. the eye appeal is off the charts, and rivals many 5's & 6's I've seen. After going back and forth, I finalized a deal on this on Christmas day this past year.
1952 TOPPS MICKEY MANTLE
Last but not least is a card that needs no introduction. It is the #1 card to have this side of the T206 Honus Wagner, and a PSA 9 copy of it recently shattered sales records for any card in history at over $5,000,000. I had a creased up / ink blotched version in 2019/20 and sold it. I never thought I'd have one again, and then found someone with this. I was able to trade my 2011 Topps Update Diamond Mike Trout PSA 10 + some cash for it. As with the others above, the eye appeal is off the charts.
It almost looks as though it was perhaps put in one of those thick old school glass holders, and upon removal, some of the bottom left paper came off. If that didn't happen, it simply wouldn't be in my collection, as it would have graded way higher than I could have ever have fathomed to pay. Thankfully, much of it is localized to the border, so with as barely noticeable as it is in the picture below, it is even less noticeable in person. Like the Cracker Jack Shoeless Joe Jackson, I simply would be unable to obtain now given how well these have been selling recently. Similar examples were both in the latest Clean Sweep Auction and performed really well.
That is basically all I have in terms of non Canseco keeper baseball cards. They aren't shiny, have no gimmicks embedded in them, or serial numbers. In spite of all this, I simply can't stop looking at them, and can't see myself ever tiring of owning them. The story that they tell radiates off of them with each glance, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have them in my care for now. That may all change at the drop of a hat, but I love them tons!
As you can tell, I'm a BIG believer in low-mid grade vintage with high eye appeal of super key cards, and cards with amazing stories. When I started buying and selling cards back 15 or so years ago, I never would have dreamed I would be able to come across cards like these, and always wondered how people got to where they were wheeling and dealing at this level. I guess the secret is to start small, be patient, and do your homework. As Mark Cuban would say, you've gotta crawl before you ball. The trick is to have fun crawling along the way!