frank nagy

[jakebeckleyoldeagleeye]

Any of you old time collectors remember Frank Nagy's auctions and buying from him?

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye

Any of you old time collectors remember Frank Nagy's auctions and buying from him?

I dealt w/ Frank in the '80's
Here are some of his card that SGC pedigreed

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye

Any of you old time collectors remember Frank Nagy's auctions and buying from him?

I have a complete run of “Sport Hobbyist”, which Nagy co-published from 1961 to 1966 (and which was mostly just Nagy’s auctions for its last couple of years), and a near-complete run of his Frank’s Auction Corner from 1966-68. The latter are from the collection of Irv Lerner, another longtime collector and part-time dealer.

[ZiggerZagger]

Ditto. Prized pickup from the last National in AC with the Nagy pedigree...

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[commishbob]

When I got back into collecting (as an adult) in the late 70s I came across his auctions or at least read about them in SCD.

Didn't Bill Mastro end up with his collection? Maybe I'm mis-remembering that.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by commishbob

Didn't Bill Mastro end up with his collection? Maybe I'm mis-remembering that.

I believe he did. Mastro was very close to Nagy, and was engaged to his daughter for a while. Here is an article that Mastro wrote about Nagy in the August 31, 1976 Sports Collectors Digest.

[oaks1912]

Frank was a larger than life figure and very helpful to collectors with questions. His handwritten letters would arrive with my monthly auction winnings which were sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard, wrapped with butcher paper and tied with string. Frank was a chain smoker, and I always knew when his packages were in my p/o box, because the cigarette smoke aroma created a cloud like 'pigpen' on Peanuts. Once I out the key in my box, the aroma cloud would come out of my box, and usually took two or three weeks of new magazines or mimeograph paper to neutralize the box. You'll still see a number of cards previously owned by Frank circulating in the hobby with his handwriting on the back. Always brings a smile to my face when I see them. A great collector and a great person.

[oldjudge]

Frank was a great guy to deal with, and he had some incredible stories. When he first started dealing there was little demand for N172s. He told me he would throw some in with orders for free. He also told me he would put an N173 at the bottom of a box to support it. His great line to get you to buy something was "it will add class to your collection". When I was collecting football I bought a lot of match covers in his auctions.

[trdcrdkid]

Here's an article about baseball card collectors from the August 10, 1971 Wall Street Journal, with a section on Nagy and how he pissed off his wife by spending their life savings on Walter Corson's card collection.

[tedzan]

. .


Here is the 1st issue (1962) of The Sport Hobbyist. Charles Brooks and Frank Nagy were it's co-founders. Most of us old-timers have fond memories of Frank Nagy.
Frank ran a mail auction for many decades. I saved his interesting notes (from early 1980's) which he would include with the cards won from his auction. Example:
he would often reduce the amount of your winning bid because the closest bid to it was considerably less than yours. Now, how can you beat that ?
Frank's auction stuff was very eclectic, 19th Century - 1970's cards (all sports and non-sports). I recall winning T206 (Ex) commons for $1 - $2 each. And Cobb's,
Lajoie's, Matty's, and CYoung's, etc. for less than $10 each.

TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye

Any of you old time collectors remember Frank Nagy's auctions and buying from him?

Yes. I began collecting vintage in 1975, and subscribed to his mail order auctions regularly for a couple of years, beginning in 1976, I think. For some reason, I eschewed the Goudey Ruth cards that were going for $50 a piece, but glommed onto the Topps 1950 team cards, thinking they were so scarce that they would be super valuable some day. I did land one good deal that I can recall . . . a lot of (150) T206 cards for just $15! OF course they were low end, but still quite a bargain. He would actually send you the cards before you paid for them back then, and you would then either pay upon approval or return the cards for a full refund. I remember returning a card only once - a Batter Up Jimmy Foxx I had won for about $9.75. Of course you could see what you were bidding on since there were no pictures in the descriptions. I complained to him that the top was missing, and I was only getting "half a card" for my money. He wrote me back a lengthy letter, explaining that he had seen Foxx go for $15 or more in even worse condition that the one I had bid on, but he also affirmed my right to return it. What a good guy Frank Nagy was.

[barrysloate]

It's interesting how many of the cards pictured here from Nagy's collection ended up in AUTH holders. Did old time collectors not care at all about condition, and whether the card seemed undersized or trimmed? You would think an advanced collector who handled so many cards would have been continually upgrading his sets, and replacing cards that appeared to have problems.

[japhi]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

It's interesting how many of the cards pictured here from Nagy's collection ended up in AUTH holders. Did old time collectors not care at all about condition, and whether the card seemed undersized or trimmed? You would think an advanced collector who handled so many cards would have been continually upgrading his sets, and replacing cards that appeared to have problems.

Was thinking the same.

I think this tells us a lot about what condition cards were available at the time. Amazing that in the last 20 years all these high end 100 year old cards show up, but a guy who devoted his life to pre war cards 50 years ago had a collection of low grade.

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by japhi

Was thinking the same.

I think this tells us a lot about what condition cards were available at the time. Amazing that in the last 20 years all these high end 100 year old cards show up, but a guy who devoted his life to pre war cards 50 years ago had a collection of low grade.

Excellent point.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

It's interesting how many of the cards pictured here from Nagy's collection ended up in AUTH holders. Did old time collectors not care at all about condition, and whether the card seemed undersized or trimmed? You would think an advanced collector who handled so many cards would have been continually upgrading his sets, and replacing cards that appeared to have problems.

Lionel Carter did that, and so did a couple of other guys, but they were considered oddballs within the hobby. Most collectors didn't care too much about condition except in a very broad sense, and some, such as Buck Barker, didn't care about it at all. (The spiritual ancestors of the OBC guys.) Here is an article about card conditions that Carter wrote for the April 1973 Ballcard Collector, with some observations that were ahead of their time in many ways.

[barrysloate]

It seems that if you are always buying big collections, as I assume these old timers were doing regularly, wouldn't part of the fun be replacing damaged or problem cards with cleaner and fresher ones? I used to do that all the time, and it seems so natural to me. Nagy must have handled a million cards, so why not keep the best ones? I'm not talking about Mint, but simply replacing a creased card with one without creases.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

It seems that if you are always buying big collections, as I assume these old timers were doing regularly, wouldn't part of the fun be replacing damaged or problem cards with cleaner and fresher ones? I used to do that all the time, and it seems so natural to me. Nagy must have handled a million cards, so why not keep the best ones? I'm not talking about Mint, but simply replacing a creased card with one without creases.

For all we know he may have done that, but all of the trimmed AUTH cards from Nagy's collection shown above look pretty nice, as do many of those with low technical grades (like that SGC 10 CJ Strunk). I think Nagy, like most collectors of his era, went for eye appeal, and didn't really care about flaws (including modest trimming) that would today give a card a low technical grade.