Posted By:
warshawlawI saw them auctioning Claxton and 3 Black Sox in separate lots. Why they put Weaver, Williams and Risberg into one lot utterly escapes me. I think they would separately draw at least as much as Claxton who is, after all, a novelty act, not part of MLB history.
W/R/T the maxi-lot here, I suspect what you will get here are a lot of commons and some minor stars and minor HOFers. Their list of what was in the lot was less than impressive.
While the lot is truly ridiculous but I see the logic in selling it this way, at least for the auctioneer. Sight unseen, average Zeenuts will fetch $10 each retail, so I'd guess a reasonable value on the lot at about $25,000 (including vig) unless there are some nice set blocks and/or some real rarities there that are unlisted, in which case the price could escalate. That said, I think it will sell for more than "reasonable" value regardless. I would not be surprised with a total including juice of $40,000-$50,000. That's only about $20 a card. Sotheby's must figure it is an easy $20,000 commission or a hard $30,000 aggregate commission. They'd rather leave some money on the table than work for it, like most of the big auctioneers. Damned shame too, as some of us specialists would love a crack at feasible hunks of the lot.