Open For Bidding - Love of the Game's Late Summer Auction

[Al C.risafulli]

Hi everyone:

Just a quick note to let you all know that LOTG's "late" Summer Premier Auction is open for bidding.

It's the biggest auction we've ever done - more than 2100 lots, and some of the coolest stuff we've ever offered.

Some highlights:

• A bunch of spectacular Type 1 photos, including a beautiful Paul Thompson shot of Babe Ruth dating to 1920.

• A spectacular 1917 Tim Murnane Day photo featuring Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Joe Jackson and more, originating from Walter Johnson's estate and with WaJo's handwriting identifying each player (including a ? instead of his name), with a letter of provenance from Net54's own Hank Thomas.

• An unbelievable find of T206 printer's scraps and other print anomalies that walked into our office at the beginning of the summer. 20 cards that were part of a group of more than 100 T206s mounted to two cardboard mattes. Missing color passes, ghost images, yellow scraps, dual names, and multi-strike backs, all together in one amazing collection.

• The largest 19th Century section we've ever offered. More than 200 lots of cards and memorabilia in total - N172s, N173s, N173 "Proofs", KBats, Yum Yum, G&B Gum, studio cabinets, scorecards (including a gorgeous Mort Rogers) and more.

• A gorgeous group of 1959 Home Run Derby cards, in higher grade.

• A complete T204 Ramly set, sold card-by-card, including a bunch of beautiful, rare examples.

• A huge collection of companion pieces for display purposes, all related to the companies that make the cards we love. Old Judge, Croft's Cocoa, Close Candy, Boston Garter, Pirate, etc.

• Probably my favorite piece in the auction, which is a photo album that walked into our booth at the National. When we opened it, we were greeted with a bunch of snapshots that seemed to be from the University of Michigan, but as we paged further in, it had tons of baseball content, including a bunch of shots of Branch Rickey. Later, there were shots of 1913 spring training with the Cleveland Naps, including a never before seen photo of Nap Lajoie with Hal Chase and Vean Gregg. Just an amazing piece of history.

There's so much great stuff in this auction, I'm so proud of it. We've still got some work to do, putting the finishing touches on a lot of the memorabilia pieces (there's tons of items that require measurements), and some improvements we're making to some descriptions of group lots and sets. Those will be up in the coming days.

Until then, though, we're open for bidding. The auction closes on Saturday the 28th. If you're an active bidder, catalogs will mail late next week - we tried something cool this time, we're printing them with two different covers and mailing them out at random - some of you will get one, some will get the other!

You can bid or peruse the auction here, if you're so inclined: https://bid.loveofthegameauctions.com/Lots/Gallery

Thanks!
-Al