First Copeland Collection Pedigree Emerges from the Hobby Shadows

[clamendo]

Years ago, I ran into Joe Orlando at a National and told him about a nice collection of Kahn's football that had been put away for many years and
was from the Copeland Collection, as auctioned by Sotheby's. He told me that no one (except for probably Ken Kendricks) had been able to trace
their cards with the proper provenance back to this famous collection. Well, I went on a mission to be the first. I had to provide iron clad proof to PSA
leadership over nearly a three-year span with a pandemic in the middle.

As you know, Jim Copeland bought the best quality cards that were obtainable, and money was no object. See the discussion thread below.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...light=copeland

His collection launched this hobby of ours: the quest for high grade, PSA grading (the Gretzky Wagner), dedicated sport memorabilia auctions, and the beginnings of cards as an alternative investment. It is estimated that this market is now a $12B industry. The Kahn's run as Bill Mastro described "Mint from the factory, never seen a hot dog". Of course, they aren't all Mint, but were the best that could be found. I think the average is 6.3, but
it should be noted that all 250 cards were encapsulated and received a numerical grade. IMO besides Burdick, which is in a museum, can't think of a better collection pedigree to have.

Here are a few pictures.

[raulus]

Awesome!

Just to give us a bit of a peek behind the process, what kind of proof did PSA require?

[sb1]

Congrats Carl!

[clamendo]

I spoke to a VP at Soethby’s who helped me decode the sticker that was present on the original album/pages. The original albums were kept in tact with the cards undisturbed for thirty years housed in the 4-pocket black pages that were Made in Germany. Very distinctive. The numerator is the auction lot, the denominator is number of pieces. Sotheby’s went into their archives and retrieved the original auction invoice. The in-person purchaser wrote me very nice letter of provenance. It had to be a “one and done” submission. Hats off the Jackie Curiel who relayed all my backup to first Joe Orlando, then Steve Sloan, then Kevin Lenane. They take pedigrees pretty seriously.

I saw someone post about his T206 collection. So, no cracking out and resubmitting, improving. I almost kept them in the original album, almost just graded the stars, almost just the HoFers, but after talking to a lot of people (like Scott Brockelman, Gary Nuchereno, Paul Kaufman, Jim Ragsdale) I decided to grade the whole shot. $5K This way there would be no questions.


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[Peter_Spaeth]

One can only speculate how many of Copeland's cards were, like the Wagner, improved.

[clamendo]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

One can only speculate how many of Copeland's cards were, like the Wagner, improved.

No one cared about football cards in 1991. In some ways, this submission vindicates Bill Mastro. The grades on the five Jim Brown cards were ‘59 PSA 5, ‘61 PSA 6, ‘’62 PSA 6, ‘63 PSA 5.5 and ‘ 64 PSA 4.5. I thought PSA was pretty conservative on these. 250 cards not a single one came back altered.


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[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by clamendo

No one cared about football cards in 1991. In some ways, this submission vindicates Bill Mastro. The grades on the five Jim Brown cards were ‘59 PSA 5, ‘61 PSA 6, ‘’62 PSA 6, ‘63 PSA 5.5 and ‘ 64 PSA 4.5. I thought PSA was pretty conservative on these. 250 cards not a single one came back altered.


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Yeah those grades sure look harsh. I mean maybe the cards aren't mint as advertised given today's standards, but neither are they as low as PSA graded them.

[clamendo]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yeah those grades sure look harsh. I mean maybe the cards aren't mint as advertised given today's standards, but neither are they as low as PSA graded them.

I will post my ‘59 Kahn’s Jim Brown PSA-5 and I compared it to the ‘59 Kahn’s Jim Brown PSA-7 that Memory Lane just sold. It looks superior. When you tilt the card there is a very slight scratch barely noticeable. According to PSA standards it should have probably been a PSA-6. I may have it reviewed. Everyone is trying to be the toughest graders. I’ll concur with many of the comments, it does seem like they are being much tougher.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by clamendo

I spoke to a VP at Soethby’s who helped me decode the sticker that was present on the original album/pages. The original albums were kept in tact with the cards undisturbed for thirty years housed in the 4-pocket black pages that were Made in Germany. Very distinctive. The numerator is the auction lot, the denominator is number of pieces. Sotheby’s went into their archives and retrieved the original auction invoice. The in-person purchaser wrote me very nice letter of provenance. It had to be a “one and done” submission. Hats off the Jackie Curiel who relayed all my backup to first Joe Orlando, then Steve Sloan, then Kevin Lenane. They take pedigrees pretty seriously.

I saw someone post about his T206 collection. So, no cracking out and resubmitting, improving. I almost kept them in the original album, almost just graded the stars, almost just the HoFers, but after talking to a lot of people (like Scott Brockelman, Gary Nuchereno, Paul Kaufman, Jim Ragsdale) I decided to grade the whole shot. $5K This way there would be no questions.


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That's pretty amazing provenance!

I've got a piece that I'm confident is from the auction, but haven't been able to convince PSA about it. Although I haven't worked that hard at it either!

Scans from the item and from the catalog below. Due to the rarity of this item, particularly with the size and full hot dogs on the side, that alone might be good enough. But when you add in the very obvious and oddly shaped scratch from just above the "A" in "trading" would seem to make it conclusive to me.

[clamendo]

Originally Posted by raulus

That's pretty amazing provenance!

I've got a piece that I'm confident is from the auction, but haven't been able to convince PSA about it. Although I haven't worked that hard at it either!

Scans from the item and from the catalog below. Due to the rarity of this item, particularly with the size and full hot dogs on the side, that alone might be good enough. But when you add in the very obvious and oddly shaped scratch from just above the "A" in "trading" would seem to make it conclusive to me.

Nice, Mays. Anything that came with hot dogs must be rare.


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[raulus]

Originally Posted by clamendo

Nice, Mays. Anything that came with hot dogs must be rare.


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Right? Props to my friend Fred McKie (whiteymet) who helped me to track this one down, and tipped me off to the fact that it was from the Copeland auction.

[clamendo]

Ah. One of my friends made a good point. In coin collecting it’s a real big deal. That hobby is a lot more mature than cards. They really like knowing the provenance and what famous collection it came from.


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[steve B]

Originally Posted by clamendo

Ah. One of my friends made a good point. In coin collecting it’s a real big deal. That hobby is a lot more mature than cards. They really like knowing the provenance and what famous collection it came from.


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It's pretty much the same for stamps, although it depends on the collection. FDR was a big collector, but had mostly cheap stuff. His collection was auctioned off almost as souvenirs. I have a couple Christmas seals he had that were just randomly in a collection I bought.
For expensive stuff that provenance is often a plus.

[tobychin]

Carl, I want to thank you for your post. I think I bought a set from the Copeland collection. In July of 1991 I bought an R312 set from Bill Hughes for $3,300. He told me the set had been sold in the Sothebys auction, but I did not know anything about the Copeland collection until reading your post. The cards are in sheets with black backing and are made in W Germany. Thanks again for your information about this collection.