Larry Fritsch Collection

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Posted By: Glen Turner

tbob:
I was the second collector to visit John England in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, the first was Bill Haber in 1967.
Mr. England had an amazing collection. He had two sets framed that he kept on the wall one was the 1933 DeLong set and the 1915 Cracker Jack set.
Regarding his Zeenut collection, I know it was over 5000 different cards.
Two of my favorite sets that he had that I liked was a completely autographed 1953 Bowman set and a 1952 Topps set lacking 5 cards autographed.
I lived in Poteau, OK a town about 35 miles from Mr. England. I even had a card that he needed for his collection a 1948 Signal Oil card. A kid in Poteau had a grandmother in Oakland that sent him those cards.
I remember looking at his T3 set and really liking it, so he sold me two for my collection a Homerun Baker and Fred Clarke. If I remember correctly I gave him a quarter a piece for them.
I remember him opening up a cabinet that had several hundred Old Judge cards lined up in a couple of rows or so.
He said for years in the 1950s and 1960s that Wirt Gammon would box up just hundreds of amazing cards and send to him and he said he usually bought them all. Personally I did buy 600 T206 cards from Mr. Gammon for a quarter a piece and that included plenty of Hall of Famers around 1971.
I remember when John England sold his collection. There were three people who looked at the collection Larry Fritsch, Bill Mastro, and I can't remember who the other part was. He sold it to Fritsch because he offered him twice as much as either of the other two collectors.
Oh, to be young again and go back and really look at Mr. England's collection would be a dream come true.