Originally Posted by BobC
Mouschi,
That is great, I am so glad you are happy with them. Can't believe you've never seen these until recently though. They've been around and aren't hiding. I remember at one of the old Cleveland Nationals talking with a guy who had about 30-40 raw ones for sale, in decent shape, who had told me he actually found them in someone's garbage and picked them out. I think they're beautiful, and a great set to work on. Check out the way Dan has his displayed in binders, which is the same way I keep mine.
And one of the nice things about this set was that you could always find them at reasonable prices....at least you used to. LOL The first ten issued in 1909 are especially nice, and loaded with some all-time great HOFers. They've all got that white border at the top of the supplement that says it a supplement from the Sporting News, St. Louis, and gives the issue date the supplement was included with. Be sure to check out the Ed Walsh pose on the 9/9/1909 supplement, it is fantastic. And they've got some great team photos that are double pages as well, including the Pirates with Wagner, and the Tigers with Cobb. They are huge and the images are really clear. The Tigers one is especially nice as the entire team is in suits and ties, and Cobb has a great bow tie for himself. You get a really good, clear, detailed look at some of these players that you won't find on their cards, and also great shots of the uniforms styles and equipment. Some of the pictures do look a little odd, and seem almost like a drawing as opposed to an actual photo. Not sure, but they may have done something like for a few of these. Check out the Vean Gregg and Richard Marquard supplements from 11/2/1911 and 11/9/1911 and you'll see what I mean. There's also some super single page team photos as well, one of the Red Sox from 10/10/1912 and then the NY Giants from 10/17/1912 . Another really fantastic image is of Clark Griffith standing on the dugout steps, looking out at the field from the 11/21/1912 issue, it is a fantastic shot and study of him. And possibly the weirdest image in the whole set is of Frank "Ping" Bodie from the 1/11/1912 issue. The way his right arm is in the photo just makes it look strange, and their appears to almost be something like a white border around some parts of his body, especially where the dark uniform is. Kind of makes it look like someone took a different photo of him and then cut it out, leaving a slight border around it in some places, and then attached it to a different background. If you find one you'll quickly see what I mean. The set also contains some portraits of various baseball owners/execs you don't normally see anywhere else, and even has one supplement from the 3/31/1910 issue with four major league umpires in their suits on it. Two from the AL and two from the NL, which includes two HOFers, Bill Klem and Billy Evans. So for someone looking for a contemporary issue of a HOFer during their active career days, you get a two-for-one with this supplement. And for whatever reason, the hardest supplement for me to ever find was of Ray Schalk, another HOFer by the way. No idea why, just never seemed to come across one.
That near set were you were bidding on last year that went for around $12K, depending on the condition and assuming it included all the major stars, that sounds about right to me for what that should have gone for. But now seeing a Jackson by itself going for that much only a year later just blows my mind. This recent ML auction included arguably the 4 most valuable supplements in the set, Cobb, Cobb/Wagner, Jackson, and Wagner, with the Jackson being the outright most valuable. If these do start taking off pricewise now, I'll be very curious to see if these price increases trickle down to the other HOFers in the set, and then to the common players. And another interesting fact/question, is there another set out there that has the likes of Cobb, Wagner, Jackson, Matty, WaJo, Speaker, Joss, and Cy Young in it, all during their playing days? The 1914 Cracker Jacks come close, but they're still missing Joss and Young. The 1909-11 American Caramel E90-1 set is even a little closer, but they're still missing WaJo. It is a heck of a set. And for a lot of the HOFers in it, these are some of their earliest images included in an issued set, aside from just a postcard or single photo.
Great pickups. Are you going to try for the rest of the set now? If so, good luck.
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