Newly Discovered Old Judge Player

[Leon]

Originally Posted by piecesofthegame

After over 15 years of being on this wonderful forum, this is the first time I am starting a thread. I felt I would need something pretty special to share if I would do so. So here’s the story.

I bought a card from a guy on eBay, managed to make personal contact with him to see if he had anything else I might be interested in, and he sent me a scan of a couple random items from a tobacco card lot he had acquired in Chicago. He’s a stamp collector, not a sports guy. You will see the scan he sent at the end of the thread. Two of the three items were common items of no interest to me. The third was an Old Judge player I had never heard of...Roscoe Coughlin, Chicago Maroons. So I got out the Old Judge book to look him up...and found him NOWHERE. Then I knew this was special. I asked him what he wanted for it and he said he had to do some research, well unfortunately for him, that meant taking it to a dealer. In the meantime I attempted to get in touch with Jay Miller but apparently my message did not get through. I begged him NOT to sell before allowing me the chance to beat his best offer but he was in too much of a rush to sell, and probably cost himself a lot of money (I think he sold it for $4K plus a stamp collection which appealed to him as a stamp collector).

Jay and I have discussed the card since then and he encouraged me to post this along with the image and he will weigh in on it as well. It’s really painful to discuss as this one got away from me but I guess the only joy I will get is introducing a new Old Judge player to the collecting world! My one remaining question would be this...
When was the last discovery of a new OJ player, not a new pose, but a new player? Another question might be...
Does anyone know when the last surviving player from the OJ set died?

This player, Roscoe Coughlin, had a rather short and uneventful career but lived an interesting life according to Wikipedia, living until 1951 and serving in the Spanish American war in the late 1800s.

I think this is a real unique discovery, the kind that I may never find again but wanted to share with you folks!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Great find and great first thread post. We've all had the one (ro two) that got away. Also, nice timing of the thread on Thanksgiving. Anyone reading (or writing ) this has a lot to be thankful for.
As to your questions I will differ to the OJ experts.

.

[oldjudge]

This was an exciting find, at least to the small community of Old Judge collectors. In the Old Judge book we published a list of hypothetical Old Judge cards. These were players who should have had a card issued, but for whom no card had yet been found. Tug Wilson was on the list and after the book was published I identified some cards of Wilson which had been misidentified as Joe Miller by Goodwin. Joe Gonsowski and I did an article about this in Old Cardboard. Coughlin was also on this hypothetical list. So, it is no surprise that it was found. I guess the Wilson was the last new player found, although the cards were known; the player was not. Prior to this, an O'Day was found as part of a large group auctioned off by Christie's about 15-20 years ago. I remember sitting next to Barry Sloate in this live auction and bidding against Don Steinbach, rest his soul. Since the mid-1980s there have been several dozen new players discovered. Hopefully, this puts some perspective on the find.
As to the last surviving player, off the top of my head, I believe Dummy Hoy passed away in 1959.
I was never privy to the negotiations for this card or the timeline of the events till after the fact when Javan emailed me. I appreciate him sharing this information. It is always good to know the history of a card.

[CobbSpikedMe]

I don't collect OJs but this is awesome. A new card discovered all these years later. That's great. I'm excited for those of you who are into OJs for sure.

[x2drich2000]

Jay, do you think the $4k+ price is high or low? As a non-N172 collector, to me the price seems high even for a new discovery given the condition. Are you aware of any recent sales that would be somewhat a comparison (basically, pop 1, similar condition)?

[robertsmithnocure]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

Jay, do you think the $4k+ price is high or low? As a non-N172 collector, to me the price seems high even for a new discovery given the condition. Are you aware of any recent sales that would be somewhat a comparison (basically, pop 1, similar condition)?

Awesome find. Love to read about stuff like this.

I actually find a $4K price low. I think that it would go for more than that if it were offered in an auction.

[Piratedogcardshows]

It’s really a shame it got away from you.

I always enjoy stories of new cards discovered for the known checklist.

[oldjudge]

Assuming what Javan says about the structure of the sale is accurate (I have no way of knowing if it is), without knowing what was in the stamp collection it is impossible to say if the purchase price was high or low.

[HRBAKER]

Great stuff!
Thanks for the share.
Happy Thanksgiving.

[Jobu]

Jay, can you share how you guys were able to create a list of hypothetical cards?

Originally Posted by oldjudge

This was an exciting find, at least to the small community of Old Judge collectors. In the Old Judge book we published a list of hypothetical Old Judge cards. These were players who should have had a card issued, but for whom no card had yet been found. Tug Wilson was on the list and after the book was published I identified some cards of Wilson which had been misidentified as Joe Miller by Goodwin. Joe Gonsowski and I did an article about this in Old Cardboard. Coughlin was also on this hypothetical list. So, it is no surprise that it was found. I guess the Wilson was the last new player found, although the cards were known; the player was not. Prior to this, an O'Day was found as part of a large group auctioned off by Christie's about 15-20 years ago. I remember sitting next to Barry Sloate in this live auction and bidding against Don Steinbach, rest his soul. Since the mid-1980s there have been several dozen new players discovered. Hopefully, this puts some perspective on the find.
As to the last surviving player, off the top of my head, I believe Dummy Hoy passed away in 1959.
I was never privy to the negotiations for this card or the timeline of the events till after the fact when Javan emailed me. I appreciate him sharing this information. It is always good to know the history of a card.

[oldjudge]

Hi Bryan! Basically what we did was to look at the team rosters of teams that were represented in the set and see what players with decent playing time were not yet known. Some teams only appear as team changes, such as Worcester, so we did not look at them, only those teams from the National League, American Association, and Western Association. We didn’t add California League players to the list as there were too many to make it useful. In fact, the whole Stockton team is missing.