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[G1911]

That’s a great image of Louis.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by G1911

That’s a great image of Louis.

From the same photo session that was used to make his rookies




And this PC;

[G1911]

Picked up a big collection of T220 Silvers with 2-6 copies of each of the 23 'normal' subjects in the set. These are the SGC's. Never get tired of this issue, just tough enough to make it some work to build a short set. This was the set that really got me into T cards with my dad when I was 13. Very happy their previous owner kindly called and sent them all my way for me to examine and add into my sets. Shameless hint that I'm always looking for more to buy

I didn't really look at them closely before acquiring, so I got a pleasant surprise on one of the Gans. The Gans on the right is missing 75-80% of the 'silver'. I have a Coburn that is missing over 90% of it also, not sure if these 2 cards are damaged or if they were from a sheet that had an improper application and incompletely printed. These are the only 2 I have seen with this issue/misproduction. I love these cards too much to take a couple of my beaters and destroy them in experiments to figure out the silver might be plausibly removed without leaving other signs of related damage.

The Coburn here is a good illustration of one of my lingering points of uncertainty with this set. His name is obviously underneath the silver layer. Sometimes black ink along the border frame is completely covered and cannot be seen (or can only be seen under a bright light) by the silver application, other times it is over the silver layer (on very few, if any, cards is the silver applied so perfectly that the black border frame is exactly lined up not to conflict with the silver on all four borders of the picture), usually a mix of both on the same card. The name is usually on top of the silver layer, but not infrequently is found like this, with it underneath the silver, although still faintly visible. The Gans without most of the silver has a thicker print of the caption, and you can see there is a second, faint print underneath it slightly misaligned. On the correctly printed Gans, the silver extends well past the black frame line of the bottom border, yet that line is half under the silver and half over the silver, going in and out of visibility, which is pretty normal on these cards. How exactly the black frame/nameplate and the silver were printed I can not figure out, as any large sample of the cards brings numerous contradictions. I am not surprised that by the time they added the wave 2 subjects to the printing, they cancelled the fancy silver border and just made it white.

[G1911]

And the PSA's, which I had to promise not to crack out . A full short 23 card set, with multiples of most of the cards. Looking at a couple of the cards, I sometimes wonder if PSA has ever rejected a card from this set for minimum size. Joe Gans striking his karate pose is still my favorite of the pictures. A couple of these are even upgrades to my main set which I count as a bonus win, which is now almost entirely in what the graders would call EX-MT/NM condition and I call EX/EX+. Don't think I'm going to be able to upgrade my VG Donovan anytime soon though.

[G1911]

And picked up an N310. I thought $66 for a VG-EX was a good price. I already had a name on bottom, but my copy was trimmed (most Mayo's trimmed long ago without intent to deceive have the cigarette ad lopped off, but this one was oddly trimmed for some other reason).

As a master set collector, this issue is a pain in the rear because of the immense difficulty in defining what a set even is. All the name at top cards have the same sepia art tone, but the name at bottom cards vary. The new SGC copy is very dark, with the trimmed copy a bit lighter, within the norms of tone and inking variance that occurs naturally in production. The uncut example is a very different look, without the reddish toning. There are also true black-and-white name at bottom cards that are extremely rare. I'm trying to build a full set of name at top and name at bottom cards, while picking up any of the black and whites I see, but if there are 3 or 4 or 5 genuine variations of each card is difficult to define.

Anyways, Slavin always has a great pose and mustache

[G1911]

And a pair of Old Judges. I thought the lot got cut to a fair price, $695, but if I misjudged that I'm still happy. Receipt was delayed by the eBay authenticity program, which sent an incredibly vague note that the cards could not be authenticated without stating its because there are 2 cards instead of 1. Thanks eBay, really helpful.

Sullivan laid claim to the Heavyweight title when he defeated Paddy Ryan here in 1882. Today Ryan is considered a national champion and Sullivan the progenitor of the world title lineage. These two cards are 1888 I think, from the wavy banner release of actresses, 17 boxers and at least one oarsman in Old Judge and Gypsy Queen. Ryan doesn't have many cards, he is in the Red Cross N266 series (paired with Joe McAuliffe) and has an N332 S.F. Hess but that's about it. This is my first solo card of Ryan, so even though he is the cheap extra of the lot I kind of like it better, as I have a ton of different Sullivan cards (with many more to go). Ryan was a fine heavyweight, but even among the boxing history crowd pretty much everyone before Sullivan is merely a footnote. His wrestling centric style wouldn't have aged into the Queensberry era very well, after his loss to Sullivan Ryan remained active for several more years and then fought many exhibitions, including with Sullivan. Like many of those Sullivan beat, Ryan went from enemy to beloved friend with the great champion. Sullivan seems to be one of those people everyone either loved or hated, often both at different times.

[John1941]

Very cool!