The Southern Cards Find

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Posted By: Steve Tuttle

I was living in Charlottesville at the time of the great Southern Cards Find and I used to go over to the the store and just stare at them through the glass. I bought a few commons and still have them, but the T3s were what I most remember. They were perfect. They looked fake. The colors were just unbuhleevable. Sigh. The story, as I remember it, was an older gentleman in Richmond had them in a shoebox in his closet for 75 years, untouched. They sure looked that way.

Does anyone on the list know what happened to the owner of that store? He was a great guy who indulged my frequent visits and infrequent purchases but his name escapes me. The store either moved or went out of business not long before I left town.

Thanks

Steve Tuttle

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Steve

I'm not familiar with the find your talking about. I know of 3 major finds in the South during the 80's and 90's, Rosen's find in Baltimore of over 4500 cards , one in Charlotte of 350 cards , and one outside of Macon Ga. of over 600 cards. Hopefully someone else can help. later brian

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Posted By: Steve Tuttle

I don't the Southern Cards find was nearly as large as those three. It was the quality of the cards that was so remarkable.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Steve
The quality of the above mentioned finds are also unmatched. Almost all of the cards I purchased from these finds are 7's and 8's with an occasional 6 or 9. The Baltimore find alone is responsible for the majority of high grade T206's in the market, especially Cobb, I think they found almost 100.
later brian

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Posted By: Cy

Rarely do I get a chance to show off in the world of vintage cards. But I happened upon a "find" this past March. A good friend who owns a card shop called me and told me that another friend of his was in his shop and had a beautiful T206 Cy Young that I might like. I asked him the price and it was basically full book. I was shocked because my friend is a pretty fair man with his prices. No, I take that back. He is a generous man with his prices. So I asked him if this man had any others and he told me he had a bunch of stars. So I took a ride up to view these cards.

I don't get the opportunity to have a large number of stellar cards in my hand. But when I got there, the guy let me look at them and I started looking and I saw, Brown, Chance, Cobb, Elberfeld, Evers, Joss, Johnson, Lajoie, Marquard, Matty, McGraw, Tinker, Waddell, Wheat, Willis, Young and a few T205 cards, to boot. Plus, he didn't have just one of these. He had multiples of these guys, 72 cards in all and basically all stars. So I casually asked him how much would he want for all of them. He gave me a price. I got light-headed, laughed, then I said something crazy. I said, "Do you need the money right now?" He looked to my friend. My friend assured him that I was a very honest man. The guy said, "OK, if you sign a piece of paper", to alleviate any discrepancy later on. I agreed.

Now, 72 cards is a nice find. But these were only the first batch. He didn't have enough money to buy all of the cards that were found in a desk or something from an antique mall somewhere in Pennsylvania. After I sold the vast majority of the cards, with the help of my good friend Scott Forrest, I paid him his money. He came back to my friend about a month later and sold him the rest of the "find", 400 more. So this "find" of 2002 totaled about 470 cards. I know the Florida "find" received all of the ink. But I am confident that this batch was just as good, probably better, than those cards, all in all.

To give you a better understanding of the cards that I received, check this link.

http://www.cyscards.com/t206/t206.html


You might have some fun looking at the cards. I know I do. I use the directory of the jpegs to generate my screen saver. So even, though I still don't have all of the cards from this find, I have the scans to remind me of the most exciting buy of my life.

Cy

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Posted By: Cy

I kept the Cy Young!

Cy

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Posted By: runscott

Cy and I have discussed this find many times - it was incredible opening the package Cy sent that contained most of these. They were all in almost the same condition other than some creasing and, as Cy said, many were duplicates and almost all were HOF'ers - the bulk were Old Mill, but also a few Piedmonts. I kept only the "Mathewson2" in Cy's list, but this was a group, that if I was wealthy, would have stayed together.

I don't want to get "Dan MacKee/Leon - ish" on y'all, but it was also how I got to know Cy, and it's been a very rewarding friendship, as have been several others cultivated through vintage card collecting.

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi Scott& Cy
I know how you feel, I found over 300 T206's in Charlotte in the mid 1980's. Almost all had Piedmont 350 backs, while a few had 150's. The cards were absolutely breathtaking, sharp corners, nice full borders, and unbelievable colors. Unfortunately I didn't have enough money for all the cards, but I did end up with about 100. I still have over 40 of them including HOFERS and Southern Leaguers that grade EX/MT TO NM. Even though I have several doubles from this "find" I can't bear to part with them. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. be well brian

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Posted By: runscott

It's certainly a thrill worth re-living. Cy and I had more than a few discussions about this after the "Florida find" and all the hype it got. I wasn't too impressed with the Florida find, but it showed that even in our hobby marketing is everything. After winning a few of the "Florida find" cards (which were very nice), I was sure to advertise them as "part of the amazing Florida find" when re-selling, and it added many bucks. Hey, I'm dealing with Americans!