McPhee in Mastro

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

The SGC 50 (vg/ex - 4) Old Judge McPhee card in Mastro is already up to over $10,000 with the juice!!

I just hope that our local boy who needs a McPhee is still in the battle!!

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Sorry Hal i gave up when it hit $1000

Wait,you were talking about me, right?

McPhee is afterall still left on my need list of Old Judge players.He is one of those 335 or so players i still need.I figure 1 old judge a month for the next 28 years ill have all the players.Im sure if i save him for close to last he will be much easier and cheaper to get.Some say im naive,others say im stupid,i say why cant i be both?

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Posted By: identify7

Gee, I was concerned that Tommy McCarthy cards (a HOF .290+ hitter) were selling for four figures!

Here we have a HOF .271 hitter drawing five figures!

I wonder how long this price will be supported.

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Posted By: Julie

I guess....what a fearful price!

I really am very happy with mine!

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Its all based on availability Gil.Hes very tought to find and is even tougher to get on something other than a t206 so for Hall of Fame collectors they dont have too many options when it comes to him.All you need is 2 people who really want his card,maybe have been looking for it forever,maybe the last card they need for the HOF set,so when his card shows up which is about once a year,you will get some crazy bids.

I figure my only way to get one is by being very nice to my good pal Kevin

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Posted By: DJ

I find it amusing that THIS EXACT SAME CARD shows up in a yearly fashion (like a holiday) in the Mastro catalog.

Last time around, $7,902.

"Bill, it brought $13K? Cool. Keep it and we'll put it up for auction again next year".

Starting to think that this is the only example, loved for a short time and then passed on like the Stanley Cup.

I threw out a bid just to keep getting the catalogs. Tough card that I fear I will never own. Only 600+ to go for my OJ set.



DJ

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

My eighth grade baseball coach always said it was better to be lucky than good. To this day I'm not sure why he singled me out for that chestnut. Still, he was certainly right as it relates to my acquisition of my N172 McPhee. I got it in Bid's pre-HOF days for an extremely reasonable price. I'd have absolutely no hope of getting one in today's market.

So, when I keep getting skunked at auction on all those HOFers or special commons I still need to upgrade or fill holes in my collection, I always have my bargain Bid to console myself.

John - when I'm ready to divest Mr. McPhee's card, I'm going to hold an all-out, last-man-standing, winner-take-Bid cage match between you and the previous owner (who is still most agitated over the sale). You know who I'll be rooting for. Before you engage, remember the immortal words of Harvey Logan in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" - "There are no rules in a knife fight."

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Interesting Kevin!

I only collect HOF cards, so I had never even heard of Bid McPhee BEFORE he made the Hall.

So I have these questions for you guys:

Back BEFORE he was a HOF'er, was he a guy that OJ collectors even cared about?

Some guys like Hoy and Sunday and Corcoran are "collected" by OJ guys even though they are not HOF'ers (yet)...

so I was just wondering what McPhee was like back then?

Was he an "interesting" common?

Or was he just one of 600+ guys that nobody really cared about?

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Who's Corcoran? Who'd want one of his cards?

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Back in 1993 before i even had an OJ card i went thru the list of players and marked down McPhee as one of 20 players i wanted a card of if i could find one.Not having any source for Old Judge cards back then i didnt have much of a chance to get one but i picked him based on his career hits,stolen bases and runs scored as a player who had an outside chance of the Hall of Fame. Also the fact he was a middle infielder who had over 1000 rbi's helped.Little did i know back then that he was an unbelievable fielder because all i was going by was a book that had offensive totals.

Now people know better who has a slight hall of fame shot and prices usually reflect that altho there are still some pretty good players who can be had at a slight bargain compared to your average common player

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Posted By: john/z28jd

To answer Kevin id be more than willing to stage this battle you want to see,anytime any place.

To answer Fred,hes a nobody and i dont know why anyone would want him

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

At the risk of opening up the dreaded "collector vs. investor" controversy again, I can truly say it was solely with a collector's eye that I approached my list. If I was an investor, I'd be consigning Mr. McPhee to a major auction house and then trying to decide where I would be spending my windfall.

It was after reading Nemec's books on the early game that I decided to get heavily into the 19th century cards. Sure, Bid McPhee was touted as one of the better fielders and possibly HOF material, but the prospect that he might be a HOFer and his card worth a lot of money later on had nothing to do with it.

Bid was on my list for the same reason as players like Paul Hines (first triple crown winner), Bobby Lowe (first player to hit four home runs in a game) and even John Coleman (single season record holder for most pitching losses) - the fact that Old Judges were real pictures and sort of brought the game to life for me.

John - I can't believe you let the Judge off so easily!

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Posted By: john/z28jd

What was i supposed to say,Fred is old and losing his memory so i didnt want to make him feel bad by bringing up the fact we've talked about that Corcoran fella so many times in the past.Heres a subtle reminder to jog that memory.If you want to see him with a bunch of his friends Fred then let me know,ill be glad to send the email




Is that better Kevin?

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Much better. The baseball card collecting world as we know it has been restored to order.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Kevin,

If you were taking the investor view on the McPhee, yes - you would sell it but in the same token you'd be looking to buy undervalued cards of other players who might be making the HOF in an effort to boost your bang for the buck. Personally, I think you could have bid on the two portrait Kelly's that Jay had this past weekend. You could of have them slabbed and sold in a big auction for a lot more. What the heck happened there. I was watching them and then got a little distracted. I about crapped my drawers when I saw the ending bids.

I'm sure John would agree that Corcoran is a $100 common and that anyone that wants to get rid of theirs should contact him before the offer is rescinded.

As for McPhee - I can only hope to make a (cheap) find of cards that will have one. $10K is a bit much - I wonder if that card will drop down a bit after the people that "have to have one" - have one.

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Posted By: Paul

Wait 'till next year.

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Posted By: HW

I was talking to a group of collectors at the National and they said that one individual consigned most of the N172 Hall of Famers in Mastros auction, including the McPhee.

Supposedly the collector recently completed the N172 HOF type set and decided to start working on something else instead. I can't believe that he would not take more time to enjoy his accomplishment.

Is this card one of the ones that originally came from David Levin?