1890 Old Judge cards

[Joe_G.]

While none of the 1890 cards are common, some do seem to surface more frequently than others. Among them, the Ewing & Mascot PL card and Harry Wright NL card.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

While none of the 1890 cards are common, some do seem to surface more frequently than others. Among them, the Ewing & Mascot PL card and Harry Wright NL card.

Hi Joe,

This is interesting to me. By "surface", do you mean cards offered for sale?

I'm only aware of 2 examples of the Ewing/Mascot PL being offered for public sale, those being 6 years apart at REA (2007 and 2013). The 2007 example was later cracked out of the SGC slab and offered raw on eBay in 2012. The 2013 example (mine above) was previously in an SGC 30 holder and was for sale on eBay before REA, but the card was regraded and bumped to a 40. Maybe all of this activity leads to a perception that there are more of these out there than there really are? Or maybe you know about transactions I am unaware of?

On the other hand, over that same timeframe I know of 4 different Wright NL cards sold at auction.

If by "surface" you refer to cards held in private collections, I have no idea and you would have more knowledge of that than I do.

Cheers,
Blair

[Joe_G.]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

Hi Joe,

This is interesting to me. By "surface", do you mean cards offered for sale?

I'm only aware of 2 examples of the Ewing/Mascot PL being offered for public sale, those being 6 years apart at REA (2007 and 2013). The 2007 example was later cracked out of the SGC slab and offered raw on eBay in 2012. The 2013 example (mine above) was previously in an SGC 30 holder and was for sale on eBay before REA, but the card was regraded and bumped to a 40. Maybe all of this activity leads to a perception that there are more of these out there than there really are? Or maybe you know about transactions I am unaware of?

On the other hand, over that same timeframe I know of 4 different Wright NL cards sold at auction.

If by "surface" you refer to cards held in private collections, I have no idea and you would have more knowledge of that than I do.

Cheers,
Blair

Hello Blair, I am aware of several examples in advanced collections. NL/PL cards are rare and are noticed by advanced collectors, particularly HOFers. Ewing w/ Mascot and Wright have been surfacing / circulating without garnering aggressive bidding from the handful of advanced collectors who have interest in such cards which makes them among the more common NL/PL cards. We are talking about a relative scale in which more common is still quite rare. Your example of Ewing is a gem, among the nicer examples I've seen.

[DixieBaseball]

Yo Joe,

Thanks for the clarification on NL/PL cards. From none are common & some seem to surface more frequently in your first post to NL/PL cards are rare and are noticed by advanced collectors in your 2nd post, I think you cleared up my confusion and Thanks BoSox for pulling a little more info from Joe!

Love the OJ's!

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

Hello Blair, I am aware of several examples in advanced collections. NL/PL cards are rare and are noticed by advanced collectors, particularly HOFers. Ewing w/ Mascot and Wright have been surfacing / circulating without garnering aggressive bidding from the handful of advanced collectors who have interest in such cards which makes them among the more common NL/PL cards. We are talking about a relative scale in which more common is still quite rare. Your example of Ewing is a gem, among the nicer examples I've seen.

Hi Joe,

Got it - thanks for taking the time to reply/share!

Cheers,
Blair

[RCMcKenzie]

Thanks for the additional pics and information. I picked up the 1890 Tom E. Burns to go with this Dog's Head Burns cabinet. I did not intend to start collecting Tom E. Burns cards, but now that I have 2 of the harder to find types, I guess I will look for more of his cards.

It would be fun to find an unknown example, like JD did. That type of stuff makes the hobby interesting.

[Bosox Blair]

Happy to have this lovely NL example recently obtained from a fellow Board member:

[oldjudge]

In general, PL cards are a lot scarcer than NL cards (not sure why). There are roughly 50 players with PL cards. Many are very rare--three copies or less. I would estimate that there are 100-150 PL cards and probably 2-3 times that amount of NL cards.