Larry Fritsch Collection

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Posted By: Bob

In the middle to late 1980's he bought the entire personal collection of dealer/collector John England of Fort Smith, Arkansas. At the time England had the largest known (or second largest according to Mark Macrae) Zeenut collection in the world. England also had complete sets of all the caramel cards and tobacco cards (T206 less Wagner etc.) that you could shake a stick at. I assume Larry still has these cards which, alone, would mean he has a tremendous collection. I know he has accumulated tons of cards besides these so his collection must be fabulous. I think from all the rumors I have heard that it would be greater than the collections of Lionel Carter and Frank Nagy, at least from the standpoint of completeness. When everyone and their brother began buying all his store inventory Zeenuts and he put a freeze on, he asked to speak with me and after a long talk and being convinced that I was indeed a collctor of the 1911 Zeenuts and not a flipper, agreed to sell me many of the cards before the entire balance went out the door to an unnamed dealer. The 40-50 Zeenuts I bought from him were all in great shape, many had the overprinted stamp on the back and almost all were creaseless with the only flaws being a touch of corner wear or a single small number written on the top back in fountain pen, like a code done by some collector many, many years ago.
I think sometimes that we forget about the "old-time" collectors when we speak of collections and cards and I can tell you that two of the most interesting conversations I have had were with Larry Fritsch and Wayne Varner. I have never met Gar Miller but hope to some day. I also wonder if Lew Lipset maintained his private collection during the years he has been a dealer, if so I bet it too must be something.