1888 S. F. Hess (N321) card controversy ends....it's FREE, at last it's FREE of TPG

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by dstudeba

......Ted bought the card pictured without knowing it was different than a usual N321 pack issued card. It is a great vintage piece which he might have bought anyway but he didn't have all the information when he purchased it mainly because SGC slabbed it incorrectly.

As previously mentioned these were brought to the hobby by Terry Knouse years ago and many can be seen on David Rudd's page here.


As for taking a hobbyists word for something, the TPGs would do well to take Mark Macrae's word for anything. I am sure there is something in cards he doesn't know, but if he doesn't know it you can bet that the TPGs don't know it.

For other hobbyists, myself included, I definitely can see your point about getting other points of view, but not with Mark Macrae.

It was great meeting and chatting with you at the National.

Your 1st statement here is quite true......I would have bought it anyway. And, it was acquired at a reasonable price, too.
This N321 "card" fits quite well into my 19th Century type card collection.


Regarding your 2nd statement here....according to David Rudd's site, these "cards" may be unique in the hobby....do you
agree with this ?


Finally, I certainly agree with you that Mark Macrae's knowledge of things in this hobby is vast and virtually impeccable.





TED Z
.

[dstudeba]

Hi Ted,

Excellent meeting and chatting with you also. I have not seen a duplicate N321 paper version to refute David's statement that they could be unique. However as you know they don't come up very often so it is tough to determine. I don't believe there were any duplicates in Terry Knouse's find of 30 or so.

[oaks1912]

Lets try to make this as simple as possible. There are currently three types of N-321 SF Hess Color California League cards that are documented. Up until the early 80’s only one style was documented of these relatively scarce cards. In 1983, Lew Lipset published “The Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, Volume 1, 19th Century Cards” . THe SF Hess N-321 set was covered on pages 51 & 52 and contains no mention of variation in printing, cut or paper stock. The cards that Lipset illustrated in his book are regular insert cards (Type-1), that is, they contain the SF Hess & Company ad along the bottom border, and the “Copyright 1888” line in red along the bottom border, just inside the frame (Note : I can verify Type 1 examples of Hanley, McCord and H.Smith which do NOT have the “Copyright 1888” line) . They are printed on a sturdy stock of paper... Shortly after Lew’s book was released, I was at a National Convention (either ’83 Chicago or ’84 Parsippany) and found a box of 19th Century cards on a dealer’s table, including several of the N-321 cards. These cards however appeared different. They were all handcut, they did not contain the SF Hess & Company logo along the bottom and they did not include the “Copyright 1888”.... The dealer recognized that these were handcut, and gave me a fair price on the group, which included duplicates.... I went over to the table of friend Dick Dobbins to show him the cards and ask what he thought. Although Dobbins had not seen this group for sale at the National, he did indicate that he had picked up a few of these style cards (Without the ad or copyright) from other sources before and was confident of their authenticity. This and a few follow up discussions with Dick, we decided to refer to these as “Type-2, Advertising sheets cards” At the time few people cared, and even fewer were aware that they existed...... Sometime in the 1990’s, pioneer Bay Area dealer Dennis King offered a group of about 30 / 31 of the N-321 cards to me. His group looked like the regular insert cards, however they were printed on significantly thinner stock of paper. Dennis indicated that these had been acquired years earlier as part of a large 19th / early 20th century paper collection. We could not meet on a price and this group was eventually sold to Terry Knouse. Although I do not have xeroxs of those cards, some colors appeared to be muted, most I recall being handcut and all were on extremely thin paper stock. This variety was referred to as Type -3. To my knowledge only one group of Type 3 cards have ever surfaced. The Type 3 cards would probably be the closest to “Proof cards”, although I would place an asterisk next to the word proof, until more supporting evidence turns up... Several years back, Legendary auctions offered a near set of N-321 Hess cards which included mostly Type 1, and some Type 2 cards. That collection is believed to be from a longtime Northern California collector who was a good friend and contemporary of Dick Dobbins. It is quite possible that the Type 2 cards in the Legendary group, and the Type 2 cards that Dobbins had (Prior to Dobbins death in 1999, he sold me his Hess group) were from the same find. Clearly the first Type is the most desirable, at least in terms of construction and aesthetics. Its at the discretion / judgement of individual collectors as to what they feel is worth the most (if anything) to them.

[Joe_G.]

Thank you Mark, interesting history.

[oldjudge]

Mark--weren't there some of either what you call Type 2 or Type 3 that had some large black letters on their obverse? Am I not remembering correctly, or if I am remembering correctly, what were they? Are they the ones trimmed off the poster (Type 2)?

Best--Jay

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Mark--weren't there some of either what you call Type 2 or Type 3 that had some large black letters on their obverse? Am I not remembering correctly, or if I am remembering correctly, what were they? Are they the ones trimmed off the poster (Type 2)?

Best--Jay

Jay- You're thinking of N284 Buchner Gold Coins.

[oaks1912]

Thanks Barry....You beat me to the punch...Buchner 'Ad' cards are sometimes found with the black letters on the front

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by oaks1912

Lets try to make this as simple as possible. There are currently three types of N-321 SF Hess Color California League cards that are documented. Up until the early 80’s only one style was documented of these relatively scarce cards. In 1983, Lew Lipset published “The Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, Volume 1, 19th Century Cards” . THe SF Hess N-321 set was covered on pages 51 & 52 and contains no mention of variation in printing, cut or paper stock. The cards that Lipset illustrated in his book are regular insert cards (Type-1), that is, they contain the SF Hess & Company ad along the bottom border, and the “Copyright 1888” line in red along the bottom border, just inside the frame (Note : I can verify Type 1 examples of Hanley, McCord and H.Smith which do NOT have the “Copyright 1888” line) . They are printed on a sturdy stock of paper... Shortly after Lew’s book was released, I was at a National Convention (either ’83 Chicago or ’84 Parsippany) and found a box of 19th Century cards on a dealer’s table, including several of the N-321 cards. These cards however appeared different. They were all handcut, they did not contain the SF Hess & Company logo along the bottom and they did not include the “Copyright 1888”.... The dealer recognized that these were handcut, and gave me a fair price on the group, which included duplicates.... I went over to the table of friend Dick Dobbins to show him the cards and ask what he thought. Although Dobbins had not seen this group for sale at the National, he did indicate that he had picked up a few of these style cards (Without the ad or copyright) from other sources before and was confident of their authenticity. This and a few follow up discussions with Dick, we decided to refer to these as “Type-2, Advertising sheets cards” At the time few people cared, and even fewer were aware that they existed...... Sometime in the 1990’s, pioneer Bay Area dealer Dennis King offered a group of about 30 / 31 of the N-321 cards to me. His group looked like the regular insert cards, however they were printed on significantly thinner stock of paper. Dennis indicated that these had been acquired years earlier as part of a large 19th / early 20th century paper collection. We could not meet on a price and this group was eventually sold to Terry Knouse. Although I do not have xeroxs of those cards, some colors appeared to be muted, most I recall being handcut and all were on extremely thin paper stock. This variety was referred to as Type -3. To my knowledge only one group of Type 3 cards have ever surfaced. The Type 3 cards would probably be the closest to “Proof cards”, although I would place an asterisk next to the word proof, until more supporting evidence turns up... Several years back, Legendary auctions offered a near set of N-321 Hess cards which included mostly Type 1, and some Type 2 cards. That collection is believed to be from a longtime Northern California collector who was a good friend and contemporary of Dick Dobbins. It is quite possible that the Type 2 cards in the Legendary group, and the Type 2 cards that Dobbins had (Prior to Dobbins death in 1999, he sold me his Hess group) were from the same find. Clearly the first Type is the most desirable, at least in terms of construction and aesthetics. Its at the discretion / judgement of individual collectors as to what they feel is worth the most (if anything) to them.

Great stuff......very informative; and, well worth repeating it here.

Thanks,


T-Rex TED
.

[dstudeba]

Thanks Mark, love to have knowledge dropped on me.