What is Your Greatest Non-Card Discovery ?

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Posted By: Keith

I love hearing these stories of great finds. Also truly impressed with some of the honesty of some of you, especially the person who asked the shopkeeper if they still only wanted $50 for the Babe book even with the auto. I would have paid and ran, but thats just me and my shabby moral character

My best recent find was about 4 months ago. I was at an estate sale in South Jersy which had a ton of sports memoriblia. My biggest find there were 6 different Fred A Kail football statues (2 Eagles, Cardinals, Packers, Steelers, and Rams) some of which had the rare wood bases. I collect these and have paid alot for them in the past, but got all 6 for about $12 a piece. As a side note, I would gladly trade any of the T-cards in my small collection for Kail statues or vintage bobbleheads.

Another recent estate auction find of mine: a 1917 team photo of the Wesleyan West Virginia University football team. Two of the labeled coaches are Coach Neale and Coach Kellison. Neale is the Hall of Famer Greasey Neale who went on to coach the Eagles to championships in 1948 and 1949. Kellison went on to be the Eagles O-line coach for Neale. Also in the photo is a famous Native American player Peter Calac who was a personal friend of Jim Thorpe and they both had played for the Carlisle Indians together the previous year. I have since uncovered and interesting story about how Pete Calac conviced Thorpe that Neale and Kellison could really help Jim Thorpe's current Professional team - the Canton Bulldogs. In 1917 (the year of the photo) Calac, Neale and Kellison also secretly played for the Bulldogs under pseudonyms as to not destroy their amateur statues and lose their positions at Wesleyan U.