Black Swamp Find? Tell me more!

[Belfast1933]

I would LOVE to hear more about the “Black Swamp Find” from members here who know the story well… I recently made a trade with a fellow member here with an amazing collection of cards which included this E98 HOFer Roger Bresnahan.

I have heard of the Black Swamp Find and just read a story about it on the PSA site but I figured some here might have other insights - would love to hear more!

(Also, I thought all of the E98 cards from that find had a mention of the Black Swamp Find but this one does not… any idea why not?)

Thx all (as a bonus, I am adding a photo from the Hall of Fame that I visited last week where I saw the original image posted that was the model image for this card, which I thought was pretty cool - sorry for sideways image… positing this from my phone)

Jeff

[ullmandds]

I don't know any more than what is published online re the BSF. BSF cards were stigmatized at first...some didn't/don't believe they are real. They also changed the landscape of e98 collecting forever as there are now more ultra high grade examples than not.

Many of these cards have been reholdered...or have been since graded without the BSF moniker as I believe people are trying to distance their cards from the find.

Additionally I believe family members of the find likely still hold numerous more yet to be holdered examples.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

I don't know any more than what is published online re the BSF. BSF cards were stigmatized at first...some didn't/don't believe they are real. They also changed the landscape of e98 collecting forever as there are now more ultra high grade examples than not.

Many of these cards have been reholdered...or have been since graded without the BSF moniker as I believe people are trying to distance their cards from the find.

Additionally I believe family members of the find likely still hold numerous more yet to be holdered examples.

Actually the story that I was told is that some of the family held back ungraded examples--more cards than what had been initially graded and sold by Heritage. After Heritage sold the ones they graded, the other part of the find was sold off and ended up with Evan Mathis. Those are the high grade E98s that you see without the BSF provenance on the holders.

[x2drich2000]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Actually the story that I was told is that some of the family held back ungraded examples--more cards than what had been initially graded and sold by Heritage. After Heritage sold the ones they graded, the other part of the find was sold off and ended up with Evan Mathis. Those are the high grade E98s that you see without the BSF provenance on the holders.

I was aware that some of the family held back cards from the intital group graded by PSA and sold by HA. I was not aware that Evan bought a group from the family. Were these the ones that were subsequently graded by SGC?

This kind of speaks to the issue with the collectability of the BSF cards. No one knows the full story of how many were in the find and it seems more and more keep coming to market. Could you imagine what would happen to the market for these if a large portion has still not been released?

[Jay Wolt]

Its amazing that a batch survived untouched after all these years.
Had a couple of them

Here's one that I scanned

[Jay Wolt]

& PSA handed out promos of the cards at the 2012 National Convention.
it has a write up on the card back

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

I was aware that some of the family held back cards from the intital group graded by PSA and sold by HA. I was not aware that Evan bought a group from the family. Were these the ones that were subsequently graded by SGC?

This kind of speaks to the issue with the collectability of the BSF cards. No one knows the full story of how many were in the find and it seems more and more keep coming to market. Could you imagine what would happen to the market for these if a large portion has still not been released?

Evan Mathis eventually ended up with the ungraded cards that were held back. They were not offered to him initially. I forget the quantity but it was more than the 600 or 700 that were initially graded. PSA and SGC have graded some of these and the provenance was intentionally left out on some or most of them.

I recall there was an interview early on after the find was made public that alluded to the fact that not all of the cards ended up with Heritage.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Evan Mathis eventually ended up with the ungraded cards that were held back. They were not offered to him initially. I forget the quantity but it was more than the 600 or 700 that were initially graded. PSA and SGC have graded some of these and the provenance was intentionally left out on some or most of them.

I recall there was an interview early on after the find was made public that alluded to the fact that not all of the cards ended up with Heritage.

WOW!!!!!! I didn't realize there were THAT many?????

[Schlesinj]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FuY9Lof6Z44

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Schlesinj

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FuY9Lof6Z44

I also found it on Tubi. It is the first episode of the first season of the show Strange Inheritance...what a way to jumpstart a show.

The episode states 800 cards were involved. Is this the total amount that was supposedly sold from the find, or the overall amount of cards in the find? The episode mentions that some of the 20 or so relatives involved decided to keep their portion of the find (at the time of the episode, which was 2015). And I remember hearing conjecture that there was even more that was not put up for sale, which a previous poster has alluded to.

Brian

[brianp-beme]

What Black Swamp E98 cards should look like (as if they got fished out of a Black Swamp instead of being plucked from a Bank Vault).

Brian

[ullmandds]

honestly after reading all the comments some questions have been raised in my head.

-was the owner of this find a distributor for a region or something to have so many of these???? And the majority red? Where are the rest of the colors????

-maybe he had a relationship with the printer? was he the printer??

[BobC]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

honestly after reading all the comments some questions have been raised in my head.

-was the owner of this find a distributor for a region or something to have so many of these???? And the majority red? Where are the rest of the colors????

-maybe he had a relationship with the printer? was he the printer??

My understanding is no, he was just the owner of a small meat market store and that the cards were supposed to be handed/given out with something being sold, like candy maybe, or some other item as a type of promotion for the store. The E-98 cards are known as an anonymous set as no one today is 100% certain as to exactly who produced them, or what product or item they were tied to and supposed to be given out with. I just said cany earlier as the set is designated as an "E" set, supposedly linked to a candy issue. There are some of these cards with the extremely rare "Old Put 5 ct. Cigar" stamps on back, but those are not necessarily the main thing these cards were created for, and likely thought to have been used by someone to promote their own product or a different product by stamping the backs of these E98 cards they somehow got a hold of. Here's a story from the Old Cardboard Newsletter about the find from Issue #99, July 2012, Item #4.

https://www.oldcardboard.com/eNews/2.../eNews99.htm#4

[G1911]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

honestly after reading all the comments some questions have been raised in my head.

-was the owner of this find a distributor for a region or something to have so many of these???? And the majority red? Where are the rest of the colors????

-maybe he had a relationship with the printer? was he the printer??

Old cards were generally printed and distributed in quantity with product sales. If the intent was to hand out with purchases at a store, which appears to be the case, it makes sense that there are several hundred or more. The surviving population known in the hobby today is a tiny minority of the original production. Color distribution in E98 is a mystery but that there are a lot of cards sent to a store isn’t weird or means they have some special relationship with the producer or made them themselves or is a huge distributor.

[Gorditadogg]

Brian, this is not official, but I think you just beat BobC's record for longest post.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

[ullmandds]

interesting but the production numbers are still pure conjecture. there appears to be an endless supply of fish and flags of all nations cards...but not so many baseball caramel cards. I can't imagine the fish/flags were so precious they survived the paper drives/extinction over baseball cards?

comparing non sport tobacco production to caramel baseball is apples to oranges imho.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

interesting but the production numbers are still pure conjecture. there appears to be an endless supply of fish and flags of all nations cards...but not so many baseball caramel cards. I can't imagine the fish/flags were so precious they survived the paper drives/extinction over baseball cards?

comparing non sport tobacco production to caramel baseball is apples to oranges imho.

None of them were precious or had any value, though the baseball appear to have been the most popular according to the press. This is not for E98 (and never was alleged to be), but cards were flooded everywhere in extremely high quantity in 1910. A tiny, tiny percentage survive by any evidence that I am aware of. I will take non-baseball production figures vs. surviving cards as a better logical guide than no data points at all. I’d love to see any evidence supporting high survival rates for baseball and only baseball pictures from this period. The survival for tobacco pictures appears to be minuscule, I can’t see why we would deduce that caramels survived in high rates.

[OhioLawyerF5]

I live in the Black Swamp and am about 30 minutes from this find. I remember when it happened. It was the only time I recall sports cards on the front page of the local newspaper.