E123 Curtis Ireland Candy

[ctownboy]

I have told this story before but here it is again.

Back in the mid-1990's, I found a stack of cards at an antique show. The dealer was from St Louis and the stack consisted of American Caramel and Curtis Ireland cards. There were about 20 Curtis Ireland cards including a Ty Cobb with a vertical crease down the middle of the card and at least 30 or more of the caramel cards.

The dealer wanted $1200 for the stack of cards and didn't really want to break them up and sell them separately. Being that I was just out of college, had just started a new job and had bills to pay, I couldn't afford those cards (and my parents wouldn't loan me ANY money for cards because they were afraid I would have to also hit them up for a loan to pay some bills). Anyway, I told a long time collector (who was my mentor at the time) about the cards and he came to the antique show, looked through the stack of cards and put 10 $100 dollar bills on the table and told the dealer to take it or leave it. The dealer looked through the cards, looked at the money, looked around and then agreed to the deal.

My mentor gave me a common American Caramel card and a Curtis Ireland card of E. H Sheely as a finders fee and kept the rest for himself. Later, as he was downsizing his collection, he kept a St Louis card for himself (he is a HUGE Cardinals fan) and consigned the cards to Lipset to auction.

As far as I know and from what I have been told, "my" find was and still is the largest group of Curtis Ireland cards known. That find is also one of the things that I regret missing out on as far as collecting goes.

David