Scarcity of Old Judges by year

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Posted By: Paul

I finally used the information in Lew Lipset's encyclopedia to figure out what hear each of my Old Judges was issued in. The results are:

1887: 6 cards
1888: 2 cards
1889: 6 cards
1890: 0 cards

Is this a typical distribution of Old Judges by year?

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Posted By: Paul

Anyone?

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Posted By: jay behrens

Bueller...Bueller

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

and if those in the know tell you they would have to kill ya. But Adam Warshaw has a Boxing Guide for $43.85.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Yes Paul,its a secret.Im faxing over an application form to you now,just read it,agree to sign your life away if you share old judge secrets and sign it in blood and ill get those answers out to you.

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Posted By: Paul

Bueller?

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Posted By: Julie

1887: 13 cards
1888: 4 cards
1889: 9 cards
1890: 0 cards.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Why is it so difficult to get Old Judge information here? I asked a question a few weeks ago and got no answer.

Anyway my 3 old Judges are all 1887. (Brouthers, Mattimore, and Deasley).

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Posted By: Paul

From this extremely small sample, it looks like 1888s are a little tougher than 1887s and 1889s. I think it is fairly well known that 1890s are the toughest.

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Posted By: leon

Knowledge is money sometimes. Often there is a reluctance of divulging information because many times it leads to more competition and/or higher prices. I doubt if this particular subject fits that category but many times, especially the old timers, just keep stuff to themselves.....Generally this board has been very good about education...and sometimes a question or subject doesn't get any responses for no apparent reason...Good luck in your quest..take care

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Posted By: Joe_G.

In a broad sense, there are several reasons why many of the Old Judge questions go un-answered. Here are a few:

A) It's a mysterious set, much is still unknown by those most knowledgeable and will remain so for perhaps eternity.
B) As already mentioned, it is in the best interest of some (advanced collectors) to keep information to themselves (although I believe this usually isn't the case).
C) The question as posed in this thread would be specific enough for some sets, but when you're talking Old Judges it's way too broad. Read on . . .

I will answer part of your question by looking at 1887 alone, after all it will only point out that the cards I collect, "0" numbered Detroits should be cheap as they are plentiful

1887 alone can be broken down into 4 main categories as follows (listed in chronological order from when production likely began).

1) Script (includes Spotted Ties, King Kelly cards with Chicago, etc.)
2) Short Numbered Cards (includes Browns Champs, the King Kelly cards with Boston etc.)
3) Long or Leading "0" cards Type 1 (includes all 8 National League teams + Brooklyn)
4) Long or Leading "0" cards Type 2 (copies of type 1 cards but now instead of 'OLD JUDGE Cigarettes' being displayed as a semicircular banner, they are found in a rectangular box with the name, position, and team written in script below the photo)

Then there are subsets within the types such as the Brooklyn Minis (which I hope everyone will read about in the next issue of "Old Cardboard" Magazine!).

BTW, many on this board could likely look at an 1887 Old Judge and immediately determine which of the 4 categories above or more correctly which type it is. If you can't and have an interest in collecting the set, you should purchase Lew Lipsets 19th century Encyclopedia and study it.

Moving on, the difficulty of obtaining an 1887 Old Judge depends in large part on which type it is and whether the player was popular from time of production to today etc. Having stated that, I would suggest the various types of 1887 cards rank as follows (most scarce too most common):

1) Brooklyn Minis (which are a subset of the type 1 "0" number cards)
2) Script
3) Short Numbered
4) Long or Leading "0" Number - Type 2
5) Long or Leading "0" Number - Type 1 (except Brooklyn Minis)

1 & 2 are certainly more rare than 3-5. I'd venture to say there are some 1888, some 1889, and even some 1890 cards that show up more routinely than some of the 1887 cards, a year which is usually loosely referred to as the most plentiful.

There are so many variables. Don't be frustrated, sometimes the lack of a reply is due to the complexity of the set. It's not always because someone is trying to hold back information.

It's a great set, offers great challenges from the beginner to advanced collector. Have fun with it and sell me those oh so common Detroit Old Judges

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

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Posted By: Julie

1, 1887: all have a banner or something ABOVE the head of the player, center, left or right, that says "Old Judge Cigarettes"

2. 1889: all thse cards have, in addition to whatever else, "Cigarette Tobacco Factory" in print, near the bottom of the card.

3: 1890: All these cards say N.L., P.L. or--A.A.(?) after the player's city.

4. 1888: all the rest--no banner or reactangle with "Old Judge Cigarettes" at the top, no "Cigarette Tobacco Factory" at the bottom of the card, and no league designastion after the city of the player.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I counted mine and found:

1887 - 10 cards
1888 - 4 cards
1889 - 6 cards
1890 - 0 cards

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Posted By: joe

Here are mine.

7 1887
0 1888
2 1889
0 1890

All Detroit players, so don't listen to Joe G., sell those common Detroit players to me.

Joe

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Posted By: Elliot

Hal, you better be getting rid of those '88's and '89's....they might not be rookie cards.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Elliot:

I have been in tears all night, and you have to go rub it in.

It is certainly a moral dilemma for me.

WHY DID I HAVE TO READ THIS THREAD???

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I can offer the following to our growing body of skewed data:

'87 = 4
'88 = 3
'89 = 5
'90 = 0

Have fun, its only cards!

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Check out the loc site - 100's of OJ images and you should be able to tell the year from the images.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Does anyone have a difinitive list of all known N172's anywhere? The SCD and Beckett guides that I have are not very helpful when it comes to different poses and how many are known of certain players.

As far as identifying the year goes, mine are all dated 1887. I assumed they all had the date on them. Is this not so?

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

1887 - 14
1888 - 0
1889 - 4
1890 - 2

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Posted By: jay behrens

Dan, not sure anyone has a complete list, but those that do own something close to a complete list gaurd these with their lives. The tough variations and players are pretty well kept sercrets and they are not about to be made public until the people looking for these cards aquire them. OJs are expensive enough. If complete lists got out and people were able to better figure what is rare, prices would get even crazier, especially for the truely tough cards in the set.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Is there a sharing of information going on between the "bigtime" collectors of these cards? I wonder how difficult it would be to compile a list from all known sources.

How often do previously unknown specimens pop up for sale? Have there been any recently?

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Posted By: Julie

John (below)--that's what I just SAID...jeez...John doesn't bother to read my posts; he sees my name and assumes the worst...

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Theres a 1993 price guide from sports collectors digest that lists 99% of the poses variations,over 37 pages of cards listed for the set. Its called the 1887-1947 baseball card price guide.

Julie thinks shes gypsy queen of the old judges just because she has the most of anyone who answered,dont you?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Good News!

I went through Lew Lipsett's old guide on the Old Judge cards and read about which HOF's had cards issued in which years...

and it turns out that the reason I have several 1888 and 1889 cards is because most of those players did NOT have Old Judge cards issued in 1887. (Anson, Delahanty, Rusie, Duffy, Robinson, etc.)

(NOTE: Even though the issuance date of the N28 Allen & Ginters set has been pushed back to 1888... the ANSON from that set is still his "rookie card" since there are no Old Judge cards of Anson from 1887.)

Below are my 4 potential "problem" cards:

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My BECKLEY card is a 1889, and there are apparently some of him from 1888... BUT it is important to me that he be shown with PITTSBURG and not with the St. Louis Whites (minor league team)... so I think the 1889 cards were the first to show him with PITT.

**Anyone have an 1888 Beckley listing him with Pittsburg???

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My HAMILTON card is an 1889, and apparently there are some cards of him from 1888. I will have to find one.

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My GALVIN card is from 1889, so I will have to find one of him from 1887.

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My GRIFFITH card is from 1889, whereas his first Old Judge was issued in 1888. BUT...I just realized for the first time that ALL of his Old Judge cards are MINOR league cards showing him with Milwaukee of the Western League. The HOF doesn't recognize his stats as starting until 1891 when he entered the BIG Leagues. PLUS... Griffith was not inducted into the HOF as a player but instead as a "Pioneer/Executive"... so he doesn't really even fall into my collecting set anyway. I will therefore not bother to buy a replacement card for him.

--------------------

Other than these 4 mentioned above, all the other 16 Old Judges that I own are thankfully still Rookie Cards.

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Posted By: Joe_G.

Well I can exceed Julies total with Detroits but I still have one of the smaller collections.

About my earlier entry, I was only trying to make a point that while many of our collections may contain a disproportionate number of cards from the first year of issue (1887), there are cards from 1887 that are difficult (Spotted Ties etc.). So rating Old Judges by scarcity by year of issue can be misleading.

Hal, someone that tracks all variations might have some bad news for you on Beckley. Perhaps Jay Miller will chime in. No Old Judge thread is official until he shares some wisdom.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

I haven't responded to this question so far, not because there was some undiscovered valuable information inherent in the answer, but because the concensus seemed to be heading to the correct answer and I wasn't going to add very much. My experience is that 1888 cards are somewhat more difficult to find than 1887 and 1889 cards. However, that in itself is not a very valuable piece of information. There are some very rare 1889 cards and some fairly common 1888 cards. Joe made the excellent point that using the term 1887 cards is somewhat of a misnomer because actually there were several different "1887" issues. Even more interesting to me, I believe the first N172s were actually produced in late 1886, not 1887. My reasoning--all Mets showed up as spotted ties in the "1887" script series. Dude Esterbrook was traded from the Giants to the Mets in the fall of 1886 yet he has no spotted tie. There are several other examples which can also be offered. Maybe this is a future article for Old Cardboard.
As to Hal's HOF question, here is a list of Old Judge HOFers with their earliest major league card:

Anson-1888
Beckley-1888
Brouthers-1887
Clarkson-1887
Comiskey-1887
Connor-1887
Delahanty-1889
Duffy-1888
Ewing-1887-as Gypsy Queen, 1888-N172(interesting!)
Galvin-1887
Griffith-Minor League
Hamilton-1889
Hanlon-1887
Keefe-1887
Kelly-1887 (Chicago script series is rookie)
Mack-1887
McCarthy-1887
McPhee-1888
Nichols-Minor League
O'Rourke-1887
Radbourn-1887
Robinson-1888
Thompson-1887
Ward-1887
Welch-1887
Wright-1887

BTW Hal, I have a really nice 1887 Galvin available.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Hal if youre going to worry about the old judges years determining whether its a rookie or not,you have some t206s that are either labeled rookie wrong because of the series they are in but you actually have the rookie also or some like Chief Bender that just arent his rookie.The t206s were produced in 3 series over 3 years so some cards cant be the guys rookie if its a 460 series and he has a prior one.

You also need to stay away from those Beckley Pittsburgh cards till i get one

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

You're right... I can't get TOO techinical, or I will never be satisfied.

After all, "technically" there is only ONE rookie card in the World -- the one that was on the very first sheet of cards that they printed from that set.

I will stick with what I have!



PS - JAY: Please send me a scan, since my Galvin is not that great anyway. Thanks

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

And Jay ... you may want to "clarify" that you are ONLY talking about the N172 set as far as "first cards" and NOT counting the N167 set...

which clearly contains the first Old Judge cards for:

Welch, Ewing, Keefe, Connor, O'Rourke & Ward.

I know that MOST of us know this... but I don't want anyone reading your post and being confused.

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Posted By: HW

"3: 1890: All these cards say N.L., P.L. or--A.A.(?) after the player's city"

I do not think that this is true. I believe that I have seen some 1890 cards noting a player's team change for that year which do not have the league designation after the player's city.

Can any Old Judge experts verify?

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal and HW are both correct

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

This image shows that in the Old Judge 1888 cards, Jake Beckley was still shown with the St. Louis Whites (minor leagues)...

so he would not have shown up with PITTSBURGH until the 1889 set.

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Posted By: Joe_G.

Incorrect Hal, Beckley was issued four poses in 1888. One of them, Catch, hands held out neck high, shows him with both St. Louis Whites & Pittsburgh. Three of the four poses were re-issued in 1889 all showing him with Pittsburgh.

So there is an 1888 Major League rookie card of Beckley. Sorry.

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Posted By: Julie

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Posted By: Paul

If the 1890 cards don't all say "NL" or "PL", how do you tell if the card is from 1890?

Also, Mastro is now auctioning a COmiskey that they say is a Players League card, but I see no league designation on the card. How can you dermine that it is in fact a Players League card?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Go away, Joe G.... you're killing me!

No, seriously - THANKS for the tidbit of information, now I will know what to look for!

I guess I will use the Buy/Sell thread.

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Posted By: Andy Baran

The Comiskey is a Players League card due to the team designation

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I was just able to count mine and i actually am the only person with more 1888 cards than 1889 cards.I had more 1887 cards than any others followed by 88,than 89 and 1 measly 1890 cards.Most of the 1888 cards i have are Pittsburgh(which i collected) and team type cards so that might explain the difference.Hope that helps confuse things a little,altho for your research id go with the consensus opinion






I knew something was wrong with my OJ cards so ive thrown them all out and plan to start over again.I was thinking of giving them away but then id put some poor unsuspecting person in the same predicament