Quote:
Originally Posted by UKCardGuy
I try to do the same. I find that buying in lots of 10 - 20 seems to be the sweet spot.
That proof looks nice but there's no way I'd consider paying anything like $1,000 the ebay seller is asking for it.
To the question about whether I'd buy them without the striker attached, the answer is yes (assuming the price is low to reflect that). But my preference is to have the striker intact.
I've found a few checklists online. But the TCDB seems the most complete. You'll find the checklist for the 5 different series here:
https://www.tcdb.com/Search.cfm?Sear...ww.tcdb.com%2F |
Buying the matchbooks in lots is definitely the way to go. Am wondering if the surge in prices since the pandemic started may begin to dry up such lots for sale as sellers assume prices on all pre-war items have Jumped up and we start to see matchbooks sold singly more than ever because of that.
Same thing I thought regarding the Dizzy Dean scrap/proof/unused matchbook cover, no way anyone will pay $1K for it. I could maybe see a couple hundred from a Dean collector, but doubt much more than that.
I prefer them with the striker attached myself. Often seems when you find one being sold without the striker that it was removed by just tearing it off. Leaves on uneven and very damaged look to the matchbook, which I don't like. The majority of these matchbooks you see for sale do include the striker though, so should be no problem finding them with strikers attached. Much cleaner and consistent look that way. To me, buying a matchbook without the striker feels like buying a card with a missing corner.
Thanks for the checklists link. Noticed their 1934 silver border checklist also includes Wes Ferrell. The old SCD catalog checklist for these silver bordered matchbooks also included Wes Ferrell, but added a notation that the existence of one for him was now questionable. That tells me it likely doesn't exist then. In the past, especially when Bob Lemke was editor of the SCD catalog, when you questioned SCD about the existence of an item on a checklist, I believe they would look to find an image of it somewhere to prove its existence, and also check with collectors to see if anyone had or knew of an existing copy of the questionable item. Absent finding proof of the checklisted item existing, they would update the checklist in their next annual issue and note that item's existence was now questioned. This would open the question of an item's existence to the entire collecting community to see if anyone did know of the existence of the item. And if no one ever came forward with proof the item did exist, SCD simply left the existence questioned notation on the checklist going forward, on the off chance that a copy of the questionable item did turn up one day. You can check out the 1910-11 S74-1 white version silk checklist in the SCD catalogs to see what I mean. There are 5 silks that have never been found that really don't belong on that checklist. My guess as to why someone may have originally included Wes Ferrell on the 1934 silver border checklist is because his brother Rick does have a silver border matchbook out there, and it was mistakenly assumed they wouldn't have a matchbook for the one brother without also having one for the other brother. Just a theory.