what were the best finds you've had?

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Posted By: David Smith

About 12 or so years ago I was asking around about baseball cards and someone said they knew someone who had a bunch of old cards.

I found the person and they had over 1100 pre-1900 tobacco cards. The cards were from different companies and many different series. There were game birds, actresses, fish, World's Dudes, Parasol Drill, Smoker's of the World, hold to light playing cards and Indians.

There were also N28 series cards of Clarkson, Keefe and Caruthers plus boxers (pugilists), oarsmen, billiards players, Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill.

The person wanted to keep the Indian cards (over 100) and sell the rest for $3500. Being a poor college student, I didn't have the money and my parents wouldn't let me borrow money from them. I told another person about the cards and they bought them. They kept the baseball cards for their collection and sold or traded the rest.

I know he said he put together 2 complete sets of game birds and another 2 complete sets of fish cards and had almost complete sets of another couple of series.