what were the best finds you've had?

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Posted By: scott

what were the best "finds" you've had or have heard of?well known finds also count.it would be nice to hear a real life "i was looking in my grandpa's attic...".

scott

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Posted By: David Smith

About 12 or so years ago I was asking around about baseball cards and someone said they knew someone who had a bunch of old cards.

I found the person and they had over 1100 pre-1900 tobacco cards. The cards were from different companies and many different series. There were game birds, actresses, fish, World's Dudes, Parasol Drill, Smoker's of the World, hold to light playing cards and Indians.

There were also N28 series cards of Clarkson, Keefe and Caruthers plus boxers (pugilists), oarsmen, billiards players, Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill.

The person wanted to keep the Indian cards (over 100) and sell the rest for $3500. Being a poor college student, I didn't have the money and my parents wouldn't let me borrow money from them. I told another person about the cards and they bought them. They kept the baseball cards for their collection and sold or traded the rest.

I know he said he put together 2 complete sets of game birds and another 2 complete sets of fish cards and had almost complete sets of another couple of series.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

The photo of Moses Fleetwood Walker with the Michigan Varsity Baeball team (1882)in a Mastro auction; the Oshkosh, Wisconson cabinet with Hoy, Selee and McCarthy (1887) on eBay. They were both expensive (cost about the same), but both worth it.

I've never, never gotten something for nothing, or
very cheap....never.

MFW, cropped (catcher's mask on his knee):

Oshkosh cabinet, cropped. Hoy is far left (on floor), Selee is seated in center (bench), and McCarthy to his left.


It isn't really that simple. A guy namerd Montoya alerted me to a "Hoy card" on e-bay. I looked at it, and the same seller was selling a "Oshkosh Baseball History Book" in a different auction, with the players identified in a cleaned-up version of the photo, displayed.. There was Selee, and McCarthy next to him. Before Selee's and Hoy's major league careers! O my. Who was sure to outbid me? I was going to snipe 3.2K (the bidding stood at about $100). Then, two days before the auction ended, husband-of-tammy bid about a K, and I thought I was sunk. I didn't talk about the photo; I tried not to THINK about the photo. Maybe if JC (h-of-tammy) thinks nobody has seen it but him, I'll be O.K. Half an hour before the auction ended, I changed my snipe to 6.5K. I didn't HAVE 6.5K! JC sniped 3K+, and I got it for my originbal snipe of 3.2. Later, he said he hoped to get home earlier and change his snipe to 6. I would have had to steal the rest of the money if he had!

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

I've told this story before about a year ago so i'm not going to go into quite as much detail. To make a long story short, Im 23years old, birthday today actually.

When i was a little kid i remember going once or twice a year usually to my great grandparents house on Long Island (i live here to, only 1/2 hour away), anyway, i would always get excited because i got a chance to look at my great grandfathers old baseball cards. There were a handfull of Cracker Jacks (1915's) in average (g-vg) condition, best being a Mack. All the rest (over 100) other cards were alll black and white and i never knew what they were until about a year ago when i got them. He had a huge stack of them and kept them all in a old candy box in a filing cabinet. He had saved these since he was a young boy. He told me that he got the cards out of loaves of Butter-Krust Bread.
I tried to look them up, however, the backs were blank and there was really no info to go on on the front exept for the Underwood &Underwood copyright, and another printing line, players names and such.
He passed away about 8 or so years ago and then when i went over there my great grandma could not find them anymore. So i thought the cards had gotten lost, thrown out , or possibly stolen. Then last year she passed away and a couple months later my grandparents found them as they were searching through the house.
After doing some research it turns out they were all D381's (Fleischmann Bakery cards with the tabs cut off), ehich is why i had trouble identifying them.
Needless to say i was extremely excited when i first got them and even more so when i actually knew what they were and how rare they are. I feel they are so rare that it actually hurts there value because so few people know anything about the set. I will never sell them anyway. Im know 7 away from a full set, and plan to keep all my doubles incase i could use them for trade in the future for ones i need. When i first got the cards i was 17 away i believe, but i think i have already tapped into the only good two sources of these cards as i can't find any others i need.
HOwever, it will be a fun challenge for years to come and i plan to keep them in the family forever.

On a side note, i have a link in the collectors sites on this forum, but my scans have expired. I am going to try to talk to some friends soon and get the scans back up permanently hopefully. I work on my dad's farm though so the summer is bad for me because i work everyday. But i hope to get around to it relatively soon and get all the scans up so people can see the cards.

Keep this thread going... would love to hear other stories....great site!

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Posted By: Josh K.

I bought this page with seven e121's stuck to the paper for just under $80. I was able to soak the cards and remove them with relatively minor to no damage. I sold the non HOFers for approximately $150 and kept the Hoyt (upper right) which graded a 60 by SGC. The only other card that I got graded was the Schang which rec'd an 80 and sold for nearly as much as the original lot. In retrospect, some of the others that I sold were in nearly as good condition as the Hoyt and I probably should have graded them b/f selling. As it is, I figure I got a $300-400 card for free - which is a good deal in my book.

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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

2001 National, Cleveland. Late Saturday afternoon.

I passed by a table at which I'd looked at some T206 earlier in the week. They had seemed overpriced, but I think I bought one. Now there was a small sign saying "T206s $995." I did a double-take, then asked innocently, "how many of these cards does the sign refer to?" When the dealer answered "All of them," my jaw dropped and my hand reached for my wallet. Actually I had to borrow some cash from a dealer friend to complete the deal, but i got them (my friend got a nice Ed Walsh for floating the bucks):

total haul was:
296 different T206s, including about 35 HOFers and rarities, and 25-30 Southern Leaguers. None of the huge cards, but one each of Young, Mathewson, Johnson, Speaker, Elberfeld (WAS), etc. Not a single card was worth less than $10-- the average was probably $20-25. Like Josh I had to do a lot of soaking, and some do have back damage, but many of the fronts are EX or better.

Total fluke: if I had walked by there five minutes later, those cards would have been gone.

Funny, that hasn't happened to me at the last four Nationals........

take heart: great things can happen, even in the midst of thousands of other hungry collectors--

Tim

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Posted By: Josh K.

very nice

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Posted By: ramram

I went to a local (Kansas City) card show and a small time dealer, had some old cards that caught my interest. He didn't know anything about them and I didn't know much more other than they were old. I bought the five best for $10 each. I saw him again about a month later and bought about five more for between $5 and $10. I finally bought 10 more a few weeks later all for $5 each (which was all but about 5 cards he had left). They probably averaged g-vg but some were faded. That was my introduction into Old Judges. Nobody was interested enough back then around here to buy any of this guy's OJ's. Two of them were two-player cards and there was a card of Pud Galvin and many of the others were KC players including the manager. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to pull the trigger on either of the Hamiltons that he wanted $100 for nor the $10 manager Watkins or the $10 umpire card neither of which interested me enough because they weren't players.

Rob M.

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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

Here's another one:

Postcard show, Lancaster, PA, 2001.

A dealer in old postcards tells me he's just picked up a few old BB items, and offers them to me for $35, $7 apiece. I buy them pretty much sight unseen and get two 1888 Scrapps including a Dan Brouthers that's at least VG, and three of the WG-1 playing card game, including Anson. The WG-1s are trimmed, but still-- yikes!!


And one more:

A little used bookstore, Champaign, IL, 2000:

I see an old pin of a type I've never seen before, with Frank Baker pictured in it. I have no idea what it is, but buy it for $25. I take it home and learn I've just bought a PM1 Ornate-Frame Pin that has never been cataloged, and might very well be unique. You'll find Baker in the Standard Catalog PM1 checklist now, but only because I told Bob Lemke about it.......

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I once bought a small stack of signed letters and was surpised to discover it included a four page signed handwritten autobiography of Jack Glasscock and a signed handwritten letter by Tommy Bond in which he discusses 1876 uniforms. Glasscock's letter is translated on my website (http://www.cycleback.com/glasscock.htm). I'd say transcribed, but Glasscock was uneducated and his grammar and punctuation, let's say, creative.

I essentially got those two letters for free.