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[Exhibitman]

Which is amazing to consider: 150 years down the line we still don't have this stuff fully catalogued.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Which is amazing to consider: 150 years down the line we still don't have this stuff fully catalogued.

It really is. 150 years of collecting, and about 50 years now since card collecting went mainstream in the sense that the general public has been aware that old cards can equal lots of $$$. But every year, we still find some stuff that nobody has seen before in the hobby. On the flip side, there's certainly a lot of great cards that were made but no copies survive today for us to find.




Since it's the pickup thread and I haven't been posting a pickup, here's a recent pickup from a friend of a card that went 96 years before being 'discovered'. It's the worst of the 5 known, but it's my desk card for the month. I'll crack it out when I file it away with my cards.

[Exhibitman]

Speaking of cuts from unknown posters, there's this one with the N266 images that's never been resolved:

[G1911]

And here's the common ones seen, with no mystery to it:

[G1911]

Cards 35-38 for my set. Maybe it's just perception, but it really seems the percentage of cards graded in this set is abnormally high. Almost every card has had to be a crack out.

Hayes is one of the handful of boxers in the set who wasn't in T218. His rights were also used for T225-2, which is similarly rare though much less popular. Coulon was the best of the fighters, the Bantam champion for a few years.

I have cards 39 and 40 in the mail right now; 46 is probably the closest I will come. The heavy SP'ing and price bonus of the 5 black fighters makes it unlikely I will finish this set anytime soon. When I get to 46 I might look into having some reprints made of the other 4 so that I can use a binder without holes in it.

[G1911]

And #39 arrived today. Harry Lewis was probably the welterweight world champion when this set was issued. He found multiple opponents in a single day multiple times. He took the welterweight title in 1908, just three years after leaving the featherweight ranks. Lewis was once charged with manslaughter after he knocked out an opponent whose head hit the mat and died, the cased ended up in a fine. He relinquished the title to move to middleweight, and claimed he was a title holder in the chaos in the division left by Ketchell's death. I think his claim to the middleweight crown is rather dubious. His card is a common in every set he appears in, but he was a great boxer. Unlike baseball, great athletes can be had for the price of a common in boxing, which I appreciate.

[G1911]

Picked up a set not long ago, but that means I need all the cards again, with the other variation. Dempsey, sans lithographer line, crossed off. Love the backdrop art.