finds

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

As a new collector, I always enjoy hearing of new finds. I recently picked up three T5 Pinkertons at an estate auction for $20.00/each. I didn't even know what they were. They just looked like something that might have some value. I sent them in to SGC to get graded and, more importantly, to see if they are real or reprints. Hopefully I won't get hosed!!

I also saw on Ebay the other day a bunch of SCG graded material that was advertised as being from a recent Baltimore find that was "fresh to the hobby". I wish the Seller had included more information about what happened there.

Do you have any stories about vintage cards you found in shoeboxes, public sales? If you are a dealer, did you ever have someone come in with a collection who had no idea what they had? Let us know what they had, how much were the items worth? Where was it stored are these years?

Jeff Mohler

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Posted By: Bryan Long

?

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

They were the postcard size, not the cabinet size.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

I asked the same question to Shirley. I bought this Cabinet from her the other day... JC

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

I thought I would get a lot of responses to this thread! I didn't mean for people to boast on how they ripped off an unsuspecting public.

Keith O'Leary and I met each other yesterday at an estate sale here in Lancaster County, PA. The sale had 125 T205s and 206s. Almost all of them were in very nice condition (PSA 4 and 5). According to Keith, the executor found them tucked away on the second floor of the house. Each card was a Piedmont back. I thought that was kind of strange, but Keith said "I guess that was what the guy's dad smoked!" To bad he wasn't a Drum or Uzit man.

No real bargains were had. About fifteen or twenty local collectors and dealers showed up. Keith got a bunch of 205s, including the Joss that he posted on the October pick up thread. I bought nine 206 commons. There was also a red portrait Cobb and and 205 Matty that other collectors bought.

Keith taught me on important lesson I thought I would pass along. When the public is permitted to handle cards prior to the sale, you should check the cards again immediately before the sale begins. The Matty that Keith wanted did not have a crease on Friday, but sure did on Saturday. Too bad!! It was a really nice card.

Jeff Mohler

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

How do you even begin to find these "estate" sales that actually have material that could turn out to be nice? I'm great with the net and ebay...but have no idea outside of that.

Regards,

Black Sox Fan

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

email me

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

Here in Lancaster, PA many heirs have auction companies sell the deceased person's goods at a public sale, usually held at the residence of the deceased person. I just started reading the public sale ads in the newspaper. I was told at the sale by the other collectors that most sales don't have cards as nice as the sale yesterday did. Good luck hunting!!

Check out www.shaffnerauction.com Click on personal property sales

Jeff

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Posted By: tbob

What did the T205 Joss go for or was it included in a lot?

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

The Joss went for about $800.00. Keith would know the exact amount. I was in line to pay for my purchases when it was sold. Jeff

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Jeff,

You kind of brought up an interesting topic -

"I thought I would get a lot of responses to this thread! I didn't mean for people to boast on how they ripped off an unsuspecting public."

Lets say you were at an estate sale and there happened to be a few old tobacco cards that really didn't look like very expensive items to the casual viewer. Lets say you knew the cards were worth $3,000 each rather than the $25 asking price.

Do you tell the person that is in charge of the estate sale that the items are underpriced and that they are worth thousands or do you just buy them?

If you knowingly purchased the items for a fraction of the value do you chalk it up to your experience in card knowledge or do you chalk it up to the estate sales people not knowing what they had?

Would it be wrong to feel that you just found a great bargain or should you feel guilty about ripping someone off that didn't know any better?

If this were a flea market, would it make a difference? And lets go into this discussion without stating that their was risk involved because the cards could have been reprints, remember, you're the card experts and you know that the under priced cards are real.

I hope I didn't hijack this thread. If this is off topic from the original post then please ignore this.

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Posted By: barrysloate

We've had variations of this discussion before and my feeling is that each situation of its kind has to be evaluated individually. If you make a score like that in an estate sale, I think it's okay because the people running the sale are professionals and it is their responsibility to know their business. On the other hand, if a little old lady answers your classified ad and says she found some old cards in her attic but has no idea how much they are worth, the onus falls on you to give her fair advice. This is always a tough situation to be in but what if the estate sale was auctioning the contents of the house and in it was some esoteric baseball photo from the 1860's that you knew was worth at least 10K but you won it for a price of say $500. Are you obligated to offer more for it voluntarily? Of course not, and that's why I think if the people running the estate sale don't know the value of old baseball cards it is their obligation to do a little research. That's what families pay them fees and commissions for.

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Posted By: jackgoodman

What Barry said.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jack-that was very succinct.

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Posted By: John S

Barry you offer a valid viewpoint. I recently went to a small show near Canton, Ohio. I made my normal rounds...same old stuff, people trying to sell the glistening inserts for whatever Beckett says they are worth. I approached one dealer that had a hodge-podge of items including a box with 39 t205's and t206's. All were in the poor to very good range and included a vg Besnahan portrait and a VG M. Brown pitching portrait. I offered him what I had in my pocket ($200) and he took it without hesitation. I sold eight of the common t-206's on ebay and made my money back. I actually felt a little guilty walking out because I knew I had at least $1200 worth of cards. Was the seller ignorant or had he just paid $100 for the same batch of cards and turned a 100% profit? Bottom line, I always am happy to get a deal to add to my collection, not to fleece anyone or turn a profit.

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Posted By: Nick

I would add these other situations:

If I find something that I consider very valuable and no price has already been marked with it, I ask the seller how much; I don't make an initial offer.

If the seller doesn't come up with a price but asks me what I'll pay for it, I make a pre-eBay style offer (i.e., what a dealer would have paid to a knowledgeable private collector selling cards back then), which usually amounts to about 1/4 to 1/3 of the item's normal selling price.

If the seller comes up with a price (either pre-marked or when I ask), I don't normally feel any qualms about buying from them if they set an extremely low price that indicates they have no idea what they have. There are exceptions to this. I have on a few occasions told little old ladies manning the checkout table at charitable rummage sales that something was worth far more than what they were asking.

If it's an estate auction, I treat it just as if something is put up on eBay for $.99 with no reserve - if I get a great buy, it's the seller's bad luck.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think both John and Nick acted ethically. When John offered $200 and the seller gladly accepted, that's a done deal. You purchased those cards from what amounts to his place of business. If he didn't research them properly before he sold them, he's a poor businessman. And Nick's offer was reasonable and the seller doesn't have to accept it; if he does, end of story. We all spend years learning our hobby and these are the rewards we get for the time we put in. Not every transaction has to have the buyer overpaying. (Where's our ethics professor Barry Arnold when we need him).

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I got all of the stuff in the first four photos in my photo album from an antique shop a couple of weeks ago.

http://photobucket.com/albums/b331/nudan92/baseball%20room/


-1910 White City Ramblers framed picture
-11 Autographed team balls including a 1937 Brooklyn Dodgers, the rest are Three I League, and Nebraska State League balls, and one ball is an unused/unsigned American Association ball.

The Three I League balls all have the Red/Blue stitching and are from the Clinton Owls teams of 1937/1938. They were a Dodgers affiliated team managed by Clyde Sukeforth. The NSL team balls are from Beatrice, Nebraska which was also affiliated with the Dodgers. All of the balls are signed by a Vern Voegler who I figured must have started his baseball career with the Beatrice team and then moved on to the Clinton team, got to go to Spring Training with the 1937 Dodgers never made the Big Leagues and then came back and managed the Snyder team in the NSL. While doing research on this lot on the internet I found that Vern Voegler died in 1971, but I also found that there was an estate auction for a Voegler a couple months ago in the same hometown as Vern, so I figure his widow must have held on to these and she passed away recently. I got them relatively cheaply so I figure the dealer must have gotten them very cheaply.

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Posted By: Mike H

Dan...your son looks like he has serious base stealing speed.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

He didn't get it from me, but he is very fast for a four year old. He's also a pretty good hitter. Defense on the other hand is not his forte.