Cobb/Edwards and the T206 Honus Wagner

[Leon]

Brian- It seems this is difficult for you to wrap your arms around. Forget about color for a minute. The two guys are idiots. There are tons of people of all colors that are idiots. Those 2 just happen to be African-American. best regards

[barrysloate]

Brian- I am not convinced they ever paid $1800 for that thing. Mr. Edwards was a pack rat/junk collector. He claimed he bought it on a whim. He looks like the kind of guy who might pay $5 for a box lot and hope there is something good inside. But laying out $1800 when he said he really had no idea what he was buying? I don't think so.

[calvindog]

Barry, I think you're using racist code words. You and O'Keeffe, both racists. Who would have thunk it.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Barry, I think you're using racist code words. You and O'Keeffe, both racists. Who would have thunk it.

I hope this sarcasm was not pointed in my direction. I'm only stating that the harshness of calling someone stupid and an idiot and all other sort of incendiary names could easily lead someone to wonder why such anger would be directed at them.

I never said Barry Sloate was a racist. To the contrary, I have never met the man, and all of his posts that i have read have been both informatve and gracious.

Again, if everyone here feels comfortable calling these two men every name under the sun, what does it hurt for me to ask questions of basic logic, avoiding ad hominum?

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

I hope this sarcasm was not pointed in my direction.

I hate to have crushed your dreams but, alas, it was.

[Brian-Chidester]

Everyone's dreams die sometime.

Leon... I'm surprised that you continue to attack the person instead of the argument.

[Brian-Chidester]

I'm only going on what they themselves claim, with regards to the $1800.

That being said, I don't think their card is as idiotic as many fakes that I've seen over the years, and I've seen quite a few. I'm not saying I don't see some obvious red flags here, but I think calling them "stupid" and "idiots" is a bit over the top, and the thread that came about when they were trying to sell the card a few years back was so bitter and condescending so as to make my stomach turn.

Has anyone ever seen their card up close? On the surface, its colors look rich, much like a real T206, which reprints from modern printing presses rarely have. However, the black font and the lack of a black border around the portrait are troublesome. Moreover, why is the card so trashed on its surface, but relatively clean on its borders?

Speaking civily, what do you see as its obvious indicators of being a fake? Remembering that in 1984, a card of this shape would have been worth a few thousand bucks, at best, and that pulling off something that even approached making a fake look real was not something I'd heard a lot about then. I'm sure it was there, and people were re-backing T206s and creating all sorts of "error" variations on the actual cards themselves by erasing letters and whatnot. But every effort I have seen from the 1970s and '80s at creating a T206 from scratch has turned out bad. This one looks better than that... I'm just saying.

[barrysloate]

I know Jeff. They were two choir boys and how dare anyone question their integrity.

[barrysloate]

Brian- A blind man in a snowstorm could see it was fake. I've been in the hobby a long time, I've owned a Wagner and seen probably a dozen real ones. That one was fake with a capital "F."

Forget about the signs that suggest it might be fake. I didn't see one thing that even suggests it might be real.

And I meant no offense to the sightless. it was just an expression.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Brian- A blind man in a snowstorm could see it was fake. I've been in the hobby a long time, I've owned a Wagner and seen probably a dozen real ones. That one was fake with a capital "F."

Forget about the signs that suggest it might be fake. I didn't see one thing that even suggests it might be real.

And I meant no offense to the sightless. it was just an expression.

Barry, all due respect, I'm sure you have owned and handled many more cards of rarity and value than I have. For I am but a lowly kid from the suburbs of Philadelphia, who grew up in a row home and ridiculously got into T206 at a card show in Valley Forge in 1985 (at the ripe age of eight) when my father gave me $20 for cleaning the house up, and I bought five beater cards that day. Since that time, I've bought many T206s, and even more reprints. A kid of my means had to find some way to become more knowledgeable about the set that I loved.

As the years have gone by, disposable income has afforded me more chances to buy better cards, to be sure, so you must forgive my devilish nature, as I recieved my degree in philosophy and am a working journalist and author who can't help but stir the pot from time to time.

And while I haven't owned a T206 Wagner myself, one thing I do know is that I've seen more variations of each single T206 card than I care to count. These things rarely look the same from card to card, and that goes for the 38-40 Wagner specimens... all manner of differences pop up.

As for myself, I DO think there are some indicators that the Cobb/Edwards card might be taken more seriously, and the one is the color and printing. Yes, perhaps lithography of the early 20th century nature can be reproduced in this day and age. I have no doubt of that. However, in the mid-'80s, was there an infusion of fakes that replicated such printing qualities from 70 years prior? I'm going on the knowledge that I have of reprints, and I have never seen such a fake from the '70s or '80s.

They have done some authenticating too. I know many have passed their authenticators off as drunks or crooks, and have exonerated PSA, despite the fact that the man who graded the Gretzky Wagner admitted that he knew it was trimmed. But in this case, I'd like have just a wee bit more concise evidence than, "I know it's fake, because I know."

Not good enough for me.

[benchod]

Brian or should we call you Mr. Cobb or Mr. Edwards?

[MW1]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Brian- I am not convinced they ever paid $1800 for that thing. Mr. Edwards was a pack rat/junk collector. He claimed he bought it on a whim. He looks like the kind of guy who might pay $5 for a box lot and hope there is something good inside. But laying out $1800 when he said he really had no idea what he was buying? I don't think so.

Barry has hit the nail squarely on its head.

I still remember the two guys (Ray Edwards and John Cobb) from the 1992 Cincinnati show in which they purchased their T206 Wagner. It was from a dealer a few tables down from where I was set up. The dealer had an entire display devoted to reprints and broder cards and he had a fair number of reproduction T206 Wagners. John had purchased one of these cards and put it in a thick, lucite screwdown. He brought the lucite screwdown by my table and asked me what I thought the card was worth. Brian, who was with me, told him, "Nothing, it's a reprint", to which he replied, "Just you wait. It's going to be worth something someday."

I also remember purchasing a good condition (creased and worn) 1965 Topps Joe Namath from the pair of entrepreneurs and spent a short amount of time looking through a box of rough condition 1960s - 70s comic books and low-grade 1960s baseball cards. Incidentally, when they first brought the box of comic books to our table, they told us it was their "million dollar collection". I remember getting a signed receipt from them for the purchase of the Namath. I don't know if I still have it but if I get some time one of these days, I'll look for it and post an image of it if I can find it. This is significant because in Michael O'Keeffe's book, Ray Edwards denies being at this or any other card show.

Some other details: John was a lot thinner back then and Ray had long, straight hair, kind of like Fabio. We reasoned that he must have used a straight iron to get it to look like that, though we never asked him specifically.

One additional thought. Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson do seem to reach a conclusion about the nature of the Cobb/Edwards reprinted T206 Wagner. Here is what they write at the top of page 154 in The Card:

"If Cobb and Edwards were truly a couple of con artists, as so many of the Network54 collectors and dealers said they were, they surely would have ditched their T206 Wagner years ago and moved on to something more profitable."

[teetwoohsix]

Brian-

Do you really think this guy came out of pocket $1800.00 in the mid to late 1980's for a card of a player he knew NOTHING about?Please............the reason people get fired up about this issue is because it is as fake as it gets-if you have been collecting T206 for so long,and have bought many reprints yourself,I do not understand why you keep wanting everyone to point out the obvious to you.

This has nothing to do with race,other than these two scam artists playing the race card.

Maybe you should make them an offer

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

Brian-

Do you really think this guy came out of pocket $1800.00 in the mid to late 1980's for a card of a player he knew NOTHING about?Please............the reason people get fired up about this issue is because it is as fake as it gets-if you have been collecting T206 for so long,and have bought many reprints yourself,I do not understand why you keep wanting everyone to point out the obvious to you.

This has nothing to do with race,other than these two scam artists playing the race card.

Maybe you should make them an offer

Clayton... unlike some people who have spent years on this internet site, I'm a relative newcomer. But that doesn't mean I'm new to card collecting. I read O'Keefe and Thompson's book, but like I said above, I never saw a color picture of the Cobb/Edwards card until today.

One, from the start I said it looked fake, but that there were parts of my initial viewing that gave pause. Some of those things being the claim that $1,800 was paid for it, another being that it had better pop than many of the reprints. None of which to say I was convinced.

Secondly, I cannot from a computer scan see things like glued edges, as Barry Sloate pointed out. I have no idea of the card's thickness, nor the years of rankling with this issue, as many of you on a message board have. You might not know this, but the center of the world doesn't revolve around a message board. It's a meeting place for hardcores.

Third, it might be beneath you to go blow by blow over a card that you have obviously identified as fake. I never asked you to be a part of this conversation, nor to post anything, but you don' have to insult my intelligence or devotion for simply holding a conversation.

Lastly, I wouldn't buy that card for for twenty bucks... actually, I might for the sheer novelty of it... which is my main point in all of this... I read Bill Heitman's "The Monster," O'Keefe/Thompson's "The Card" and Scot Reader's "Inside T206" because I enjoy the set, in all its dry history and weird real-life drama. And while I don't think that a card has to be professionally graded to be authentic, their card can be vetted in a few hours and easiy proven false.

Again, with regards to grading, it was inevitable. I saw it coming a million miles away. For some people, it's the last word. Still, there are enough cards that are fakes or have been rebacked or altered in the T206 set alone to tell me that grading does not an authentic card make.

[PolarBear]

Sounds like they thought, as often happens in society, if they cry "racism" people will start throwing money at them.

When that didn't happen, well of course, that's proof it WAS racism all along.

They expected to get preferential treatment, but were treated like any other person with a fake, so again, because they're black, that's obviously proof of racism.

They knew what they we're doing, and tried working the system. It just hasn't paid off for them yet.

This game gets played in many venues. Here's a similar story.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...1?OpenDocument

[barrysloate]

Goofy story. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving never issued a million dollar bill- that information should have been easy enough to find.

Reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns had a trillion-dollar bill.

[toppcat]

The Cobb/Edwards Wagner's font should be enough proof. I can't see why people are still talking about this like there is a possibility it's real.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by MW1

Barry has hit the nail squarely on its head.

I still remember the two guys (Ray Edwards and John Cobb) from the 1992 Cincinnati show in which they purchased their T206 Wagner. It was from a dealer a few tables down from where I was set up. The dealer had an entire display devoted to reprints and broder cards and he had a fair number of reproduction T206 Wagners. John had purchased one of these cards and put it in a thick, lucite screwdown. He brought the lucite screwdown by my table and asked me what I thought the card was worth. Brian, who was with me, told him, "Nothing, it's a reprint", to which he replied, "Just you wait. It's going to be worth something someday."

I also remember purchasing a good condition (creased and worn) 1965 Topps Joe Namath from the pair of entrepreneurs and spent a short amount of time looking through a box of rough condition 1960s - 70s comic books and low-grade 1960s baseball cards. Incidentally, when they first brought the box of comic books to our table, they told us it was their "million dollar collection". I remember getting a signed receipt from them for the purchase of the Namath. I don't know if I still have it but if I get some time one of these days, I'll look for it and post an image of it if I can find it. This is significant because in Michael O'Keeffe's book, Ray Edwards denies being at this or any other card show.

Some other details: John was a lot thinner back then and Ray had long, straight hair, kind of like Fabio. We reasoned that he must have used a straight iron to get it to look like that, though we never asked him specifically.

One additional thought. Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson do seem to reach a conclusion about the nature of the Cobb/Edwards reprinted T206 Wagner. Here is what they write at the top of page 154 in The Card:

"If Cobb and Edwards were truly a couple of con artists, as so many of the Network54 collectors and dealers said they were, they surely would have ditched their T206 Wagner years ago and moved on to something more profitable."

This stuff is so interesting. Sad, actually.

For the record, O'Keefe and Thompson's logic crossed my mind too, but of course it is in no way solid deduction. Because if the card sold for anywhere over a quarter of a million dollars, it'd be worth keeping the pursuit alive for 25+ years.

[teetwoohsix]

Brian-

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence-you are obviously a smart guy.
You are correct,you never did ask me to be a part of this conversation-but you are posting on an internet message board,so expect any ol' person to chime in.
You don't need to see the "card's thickness" or the "glued edges" to see the card is a fake-period.
I'm shocked that you would spend so much time playing "devil's advocate" for Cobb/Edwards before you looked at their card.................
I suggested you make an offer on their card because you seem to be trying to convince yourself that maybe,just maybe,it is real.
Have a nice night-

Clayton

[Brian-Chidester]

Hi Clinton... surely things get lost in the translation from our minds to the posting. But, no, I was never trying to wish it or hope it were real.

In reading the old thread on this card, I simply couldn't believe how mad it made people. Since I'd never seen the card in mention, I thought I'd ask, no big deal. And once I saw it, I thought I'd break it down, even if no one else was interested. Trust me, it looked fake to my eyes, but I was just looking for that one thing that said, "Okay, it LOOKS fake, but here's the kicker." Not an eye thing, but something concrete. When I saw that font next to my own 1987 reprint, it was concrete... no T206 was printed with that font.

It might have been indulgent, but with so much fury, I suppose I pushed the issue a bit.

[Brian-Chidester]

Sorry, Clayton, not Clinton...

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

In reading the old thread on this card, I simply couldn't believe how mad it made people. Since I'd never seen the card in mention, I thought I'd ask, no big deal. And once I saw it, I thought I'd break it down, even if no one else was interested. Trust me, it looked fake to my eyes, but I was just looking for that one thing that said, "Okay, it LOOKS fake, but here's the kicker." Not an eye thing, but something concrete. When I saw that font next to my own 1987 reprint, it was concrete... no T206 was printed with that font.

It might have been indulgent, but with so much fury, I suppose I pushed the issue a bit.

Brian, here is the number one rule of Net 54: if there is evidence of a fraud and it is committed by a friend of a large percentage of the board, then there is a muted, "boys will be boys" response. If there is evidence of a fraud, no matter how small, which is committed by a non-friend then the pitchforks and torches come out.

[E93]

My guess is they knew it was fake all along and they were scammers trying to take advantage of any angle they could think up. If I remember right, they claimed not to be collectors or to know anything about the card when they originally purchased it at a yard sale, but nonetheless paid $1800 for it in 1983 (when they were probably teenagers judging from the photos). And they have the gall to cast aspersions at the people on this board who told them it was a fake and called them on their bullshit.
JimB