Collection of Howe McCormick stamped backs that aren't mine. And I'm O.K. with that.

[Howe’s Hunter]

The current REA auction has a lot of all the Southern League players that had a Hindu advertising back possible. Chris Browne let me know almost as soon as the auction went online that the lot has four of Howe's cards in it.

The realistic news is that I won't be pursuing the lot, or even the individual cards after the auction is over. The fact that they are Southern Leaguers is one strike against my budget, the fact they are Hindu backs is strike two, and the fact that there are four at once is strike three.

But the good news is that I had known about all four cards, have scans of all four from previous owners or auctions, and now know that all four will be in one location at least for a while.

I'd lost track of the Foster back after a Goodwin auction in 2013 (it is the third example that I know of of a Foster with a Hindu back that Howe stamped. I have the other two). The Molesworth and McCauley I had gotten scans of from a board member many years ago when they were in his collection but haven't had any contact with him of late to know where they were, and the Helm had been in the collection of a different board member who had sent me scans, then sent a message one day to say he didn't have the card any more, and couldn't talk about it. My guess was someone made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he didn't.

So even though none of these will be joining the others in the rebuilt collection, I do have high hopes that Brian from REA will pass a message on to the new owner and let them know of my quest to reassemble, and when not possible, at least track where Howe's cards end up. My guess is a back run of a subset like this won't be broken up by the new owner anyway, but it cleans up the data sheet of where they all are.

Good luck to everyone pursuing cards in the auction. Lots of nice stuff, as always, in an REA auction.