OLD JUDGE "ANONYMOUS" CARD ON EBAY

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Posted By: Jay MIller 

This is really pushing the envelope on a lot description. We had a discussion on this card when it was won a while back. The card is not of an anonymous player, the player is Daley who played for Boston and Indianapolis. This is not the only known example of this pose. I have a copy of the pose and a friend who collects poses also has a copy of this pose. The only difference is that mine has the player's name, position and team. This is a variation on that pose, not a different unique pose. It is not even the only known card which does not identify the player.

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Posted By: david

jay
are there any other known cards in which the player name/team are missing or is this the only card which is this known to occur.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

David--As I mentioned above this card is not unique in that characteristic.

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Posted By: bcornell

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=57993&item=5125042813&rd=1

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Posted By: Judge Dred

I've seen two different "no name, postion, team" cards on ebay in the past year or so. The first one sold for over $3k, the last one was within the past 2-3 months (from Will Hays). The latter card was not in the greatest of condition (I believe it had a small tear) and it sold for around $1K+.

Jay, since you are one of the most knowledgeable/experienced N172 collectors could you please comment on how many of these "no name, postion, team" cards you have come across. Perhaps a quick synopsis on how infrequently you see them as compared to a spotted tie, NL or PL card. Everyone on the board should keep in mind that just because Jay may say that the card is just as tough as a spotted tie that he is in no way trying to assign a value or premium to this card (unless of course Jay would like to give us his comments/thought on this subject).

Jay, your thoughts and comments are valued.

Thanks

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Posted By: Jay Miller

When you compare this card to a spotted tie or a Player's League card you are, in my opinion, comparing apples and oranges. This card is no doubt scarce. However, there are many many different scarce variations. Spotted ties are a generally recognized subset of Old Judge cards and in many cases are the only image of the player. This is a known pose of a known player.
I believe I have two other cards where no player's name is indicated. There are also at least ten, and probably alot more, cards where the name is only visible on the player photo.

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Posted By: MW

YOU WROTE:
"The card is not of an anonymous player, the player is Daley who played for Boston and Indianapolis."

RESPONSE:
This card is similar to the Anonymous Mayo Football card. The Harvard player is known but it is still listed under an "anonymous" heading in every major price guide because the player is not identified on the front of the card. We never claim the N172 player is not known.


YOU WROTE:
"This is not the only known example of this pose. I have a copy of the pose and a friend who collects poses also has a copy of this pose. The only difference is that mine has the player's name, position and team. This is a variation on that pose, not a different unique pose."

RESPONSE:
We only claim that this is currently the only known example (for this pose) without name identification and that is a fact. If you can find another anonymous example for this pose, we would like to see it.


YOU WROTE:
"It is not even the only known card which does not identify the player."

RESPONSE:
We never indicate that there are not other anonymous cards for other players, just this player. Furthermore, we even leave the door open to the possibility there might be other graded anonymous cards.


QUESTION FOR JAY:

Which are there more of -- N172 California League cards or N172 Anonymous cards?

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Jay,

Thank you for the update. I would in no way compare one of these "no name" cards to a spotted tie because if given a choice I'd take the spotted tie. I was trying to find out how difficult it is to find one. Are the other ten or so cards (with the player name, position and team scripted in the photo only) part of the 1889 script series? Can you provide a listing of those players. My list of these is fairly short and I probably have some of these confused with a different part of the N172 issue. Can you render an opinion on the 1889 script series (as far as how tough they are to find).

Thanks again!

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Posted By: MW

I believe I have two other cards where no player's name is indicated.

Let's see them.


There are also at least ten, and probably alot more, cards where the name is only visible on the player photo.

Clearly you are trying to confuse the issue. First you are claiming that we do not correctly identify the anonymous N172 we have listed on eBay and then you compare it to an N172 series where the name is visible in the player photo. The two are clearly not the same.

My personal feeling is that you are still upset that you were the third under-bidder when this card was sold and you are now attempting to diminish its scarcity through a series of false and misleading statements on this forum.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Mike-The anonymous Mayo football card was listed that way before it was known who the player was. The catalogs should probably be updated to indicate the player's name with a notation that it was left off the card. In any case, the anonymous designation for the Mayo football card served to differentiate it from all the other cards in the set. There was only one card with the name left off. In the Old Judge set there are several cards with the name left off. An anonymous designation does not clearly identify it. Perhaps it should be labeled as Daley-No Name.

As to your question of whether there are more cards with the name left off or more California League cards I don't know the answer. I know there are about 25 California League cards representing 19 different players. I know that because they are considered very significant cards. I know of 3 or 4 different players whose name has been left off their cards. I have never considered these to be particularly interesting and never kept track of how many of each I have seen. To me this was just a variation on a pose. The pose was interesting, the variation wasn't. To me this was no more significant than a misspelled name. This is just my opinion based on my collecting interests. Someone with different collecting interests might be really turned on by this type of card and that would be great. That is the beauty of the Old Judge set--plenty of different things to focus in on.

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Posted By: MW

Jay,

The Anonymous Mayo football card was never researched because nobody really cared that much about football cards until the late 1980s. In fact, the first Sports Americana Football & Basketball Card Price Guide (Beckett & Eckes, 1979) does not even have a listing for the N302 Mayo set. Starting in the mid 1980s the card was listed as anonymous only because there was no identification on the front of the card as to who the player was.

According to the Beckett Football Almanac, 2003-2004 edition:

"One of the cards has no specific identification of the player (John Dunlop of Harvard) and is listed below as anonymous."

Incidentally, all of the major price guides, including both Beckett (referenced above) and SCD's Standard Catalog of Football cards do list the player's name along with the label "anonymous." The mere fact that the player's name is known does not change the reality that the player's name is not listed on the card.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Mike--BTW, my only reason for making this post was the thought that a person who had not been through the prior discussion or who was unfamiliar with Old Judge cards might after reading the lot description believe that the card was of a new undiscovered or unknown player. In no way was I trying to impute a value to the card. As I stated in a prior post this is no doubt a scarce card. As with any other scarce card the value will be set by the universe of people wanting to acquire it. It's pretty safe to say that another copy will not be coming up tomorrow or next month so I would not be surprised at all if the card meets or exceeds your reserve.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Here's a scan of a Daley card (same pose) with the team name (Boston) on Daley's jersey and the Name, Position and Team at the bottom of the card. I've seen an Indy card that must have had the team name removed from the jersey. Lots of interesting variations on this tough "to collect'em all" issue!

BW,

The card is nice -

Jay,

Can you please provide any further insight to these nameless cards. See my previous posts. Any information you would contribute would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Next time I visit my cards in prison (the bank) I will check to see which cards have no name on them.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Would you mind giving me the name of the penitentiary. I'd be more than happy to visit them.

Thanks for any information that you can provide.

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Posted By: Paul

I think this anonymous card is very interesting. At first, I thought it was just a printing error. But the post of the Boston variation shows that they went out of their way to erase the Boston name on his uniform in the anonymous version. Seems strange to me.

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Posted By: Joe_G.

As Judge Dred already mentioned, this card appeared on eBay about a year ago and sold for $3207 (3277668848) with a lesser grade example more recently won by Jim Clarke (JC) this past June for $1247.22 (5103189825) and can be seen on his website.

While this listing was a bit misleading to me when first listed (I thought it hinted a bit strongly that this was a newly discovered pose), the seller has added the following note to the listing:

Important note: One other example of this same card sold in much lower grade on June 27 for $1247.22. The eBay auction number is 5103189825

I feel this added note clears up any confusion about the card being unique etc. I'm happy to see the seller is being honest and straightforward on this matter.

There are truely many N172 rarities/oddities including:
- no name
- numbered 1887 cards without the number (many examples of this, many of which are likely unique)
- mis-spellings
- error cards showing wrong position or team

One of my favorite is a batting pose Kid Baldwin shown for Detroits making you believe it may be a Lady Baldwin card) etc. One of these Baldwin errors showed up in the Oregon find. It was strange to see a Cincinnati catcher shown as a Detroit pitcher. One of many unlisted, never before catalogued rarities found in the Oregon find and elsewhere.

The script 1889 cards (funny to hear them referred to as a subset) do not appear to be all that rare. One example, Charlie Bennett, that I'm most familiar with is fairly easy to obtain despite it being his only pose in the set. Because of cropping variations, the script name is sometimes obscured (paritally covered up) nearly making these cards "no name".

Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Joe,

Thank you for the additional information. I used a term (1889 script series) that I've heard a few times regarding the cards that had the player NAME/POSITION/TEAM "scripted/scrawled" (or otherwise inserted on the photo portion of the card). I guess this wouldn't be a subset but different variations to the cards as is the Daley that doesn't have the N/P/T anywhere on the card. I'd hate to guess how many different naming variations one pose might have in the N172 issue. This is what makes the OJ cards fun to collect. It's the never ending set that's sure to offer more surprises when more of these cards are found. There have been a couple neat "finds" within the past couple years that have landed on ebay (Jeffs Junque, RLS939YOWL). There were some very interesting cards found in each of those ebay offerings. The Oregon Find is quite awesome in itself. You have to wonder how many more little hoards are waiting to be discovered. I'm sure that each of the future finds will probably unveil more "unique" and different variations.

I guess this is what makes this issue, debatably, the most "challenging" and fun issue to collect. When you think about it the N172 issue has so much history to it and it is the one 19th century offering that can actually bring life to 19th century baseball. There are a lot of stars in addition to the 20+ HOF players (and personalities). When you hear about Dummy Hoy and others you can usually go to this set and see the player come to life.

OK, I'll stop there before people think that I actually like OJs.

Paul,

The Indy version of the card (that I've seen) doesn't have a name on the uniform.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Mike/Brian--Thanks for clarifying the description. This reinforces my view that you guys consistently strive to be as accurate and straightforward as possible in your dealings.