Value of Zeenut Card with Buck Barker Writing on Back

[leftygrove10]

Originally Posted by oaks1912

Rob...You bring up a great point. Many of these notes , or scribbling (beyond Buck's collection) have helped to further identify some of the Zeenut players... and I'm sure with some of the other sets as well. Buck Barker and Don McPherson spent countless hours trying to identify all of the players within the Zeenut series. They were able to identify all but a few dozen (of the nearly 1450) players. Prior to Don's death, he gifted me all of his research. With the help of many baseball researchers, including Brian P, we have been able to cut that number to 4. These four players never appeared in a regulation PCL game and were likely photographed during spring training / tryouts. Its also possible that their names were misspelled, like so many others in this great PCL series.... I agree with Denny that the information / notes should not be erased in an attempt to get a higher number on the slab. Few Zeenut collectors store their cards in that manner however.......

Mark.... Thanks for all the great information! Could you please interpret the information on the back of my card at the top of this post so I can understand what Buck Barker was trying to document? I see "Weiss 73" written on the bottom left as you pointed out before.

[oaks1912]

Ok Brad, You asked for it... ..From the too much info file.... Starting at the second line from the top (We'll save the top line for last).... His first name is Pinckney... The 'P' is for pitcher..... Home is Tipton, California..... The next several lines relate to transactions (bought, sold, optioned, traded for, etc)... San Francisco April 1936, Muskogee June 6, 1936, San Francisco September 6.... Tacoma September 1937, Yakima July 7, 1937.... Free Agent June / 38.... Died Reedley, California 4/14/58.... Age 45..... Purchased from Bill Weiss in 1973.... Buck (incorrectly) thought it was a 1936 card (Its actually a 1937 card, photo taken during Spring Training as Mills did not play for San Francisco in 1937).... Top line (Portland) appears to be the handwriting of Norm McTeer, a very advanced PCL collector from the 30's-early 70's. McTeer's collection was sold/ broken down in the early 70's. Quite a bit of this collection contained writing on the front or back. Much like Barker's collection, McTeer's collection has scattered quite well throughout the hobby. Most advanced ZeeNut collections will include examples from both of these longtime collectors. Hope that you preserve the writing as it is a link to the hobby's pre-internet past.....

[leftygrove10]

Originally Posted by oaks1912

Ok Brad, You asked for it... ..From the too much info file.... Starting at the second line from the top (We'll save the top line for last).... His first name is Pinckney... The 'P' is for pitcher..... Home is Tipton, California..... The next several lines relate to transactions (bought, sold, optioned, traded for, etc)... San Francisco April 1936, Muskogee June 6, 1936, San Francisco September 6.... Tacoma September 1937, Yakima July 7, 1937.... Free Agent June / 38.... Died Reedley, California 4/14/58.... Age 45..... Purchased from Bill Weiss in 1973.... Buck (incorrectly) thought it was a 1936 card (Its actually a 1937 card, photo taken during Spring Training as Mills did not play for San Francisco in 1937).... Top line (Portland) appears to be the handwriting of Norm McTeer, a very advanced PCL collector from the 30's-early 70's. McTeer's collection was sold/ broken down in the early 70's. Quite a bit of this collection contained writing on the front or back. Much like Barker's collection, McTeer's collection has scattered quite well throughout the hobby. Most advanced ZeeNut collections will include examples from both of these longtime collectors. Hope that you preserve the writing as it is a link to the hobby's pre-internet past.....

Thanks, Mark.... That is fascinating! And don't worry... I won't erase the writing..... I have really enjoyed learning about this...

[okmaybent@aol.com]

If you ever come across Delongs with the year typed on the top front those were Buck Barker's Delongs.

[leftygrove10]

Originally Posted by okmaybent@aol.com

If you ever come across Delongs with the year typed on the top front those were Buck Barker's Delongs.

Interesting.... Even though the card below is not a Delong, do you suppose that Buck Barker typed the "A-1919" on the bottom of the card? There is some other writing there as well....

[okmaybent@aol.com]

Originally Posted by leftygrove10

Interesting.... Even though the card below is not a Delong, do you suppose that Buck Barker typed the "A-1919" on the bottom of the card? There is some other writing there as well....

That is very similar to the Delongs I bought from Buck. It is certainly possible your card is from him. Buck gave me a discount for the typing but now that I think of it he didn't actually tell me he did it. Its possible he got the Delongs with the typing from another collector. Maybe your card and my Delongs originally came from the same source (either Buck or the "mad typist" collector.) Everything else I got from Buck was pretty clean except for the occassional light pencil notation on top back. Nothing else had typing.

[ElCabron]

Here's the text on the back of his Claxton. His notes were usually interesting and fairly comprehensive for such a small amount of text. This one has a nice little biography of Claxton, including "Colored - tried to pass as Indian." Also includes date and place of birth and death, as well as dates of PCL playing career. Personally, I like his notes and would rather have a Zeenut with his writing on it than one with a perfect blank back. I'm probably in the minority, though.

-Ryan