1914 Baltimore News card research...

[Baseball Rarities]

Originally Posted by brian1961

I believe Mr. Mint provided a bit of info on these while describing one of his famous finds in his book, TRUE MINT.

Brian, I bought the book and received it today. It does, in fact, have some information on the Baltimore News cards. Thanks for the heads up.

According to the book, which was written in 1994, Rosen bought the cards along with some T205s and a phenomenal group of early pristine (1911 on) press pins. He refers to them as "Baltimore Sun" cards and claims that the seller's grandfather worked for the Baltimore Sun. Supposedly, there were several Ruth cards in the collection. From my research, the exact number was two - the one that ended up selling in the Sothebys Copeland sale and another that ended up selling in the Sothebys Halper sale. Kind of makes sense - the grandfather kept one of each color. They are both in spectacular condition and may well be the nicest known examples. As an aside, I am pretty sure that the same collector now owns both of these cards, so the are back together again.

From what I can gather, the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore News were compteting newspapers and were never associated with each other. The Baltimore News folded in 1986 and the Baltimore Sun continues to this day. I assume that the grandfather worked for the Baltimore News and his grandson just got the names confused, but I may be totally wrong.

Anyways, with the inclusion of pristine press pins from the same era as the cards, the story makes sense. Obviously, someone associated with either of the papers would have had access to press pins at the time.

[brian1961]

Dear Kevin,

Honest, I just came to the computer to quote to you the passage from Alan Rosen's book on the Baltimore News Babe Ruth material. Be that as it may, as a researcher, it would be better to own the book and examine it again and again and again for deductive clues.

Now, since you purchased the book, give Alan Rosen a call. I do not care what everyone says about the man, if you approach Mr. Rosen with dignity and respect, and sincerely ask him for help, he may very well convey whatever he might remember of the find. Kevin, it was a very significant find. By that, I mean when I specifically asked him about it, there were more than two Ruths involved in Mr. Mint's purchase, unless I misinterpreted who you were referring to about owning the best red and blue specimen.

Remember as I'm sure you do, Mr. Mint was one of the key suppliers of fine material for the Jim Copeland collection. Anyway, I spoke with Mr. Rosen in 2008 about his Baltimore News Babe Ruth find, and he informed me there were several Ruths of each color, not two examples.

You are probably well ahead of me, but have you done a search through your public library's inter-library loan person regarding what libraries own microfilm of the 1914 Baltimore News? There might be one library that will do the loan. Again, April through June should do the trick. Surely the paper would have run several advertisements on their baseball card promotion. Naturally, look for more than just one ad. The ads could very well unlock the treasure chest of unknown hobby information regarding how exactly the cards were issued. I shouldn't go on like this, as you probably jolly well know what might turn up.

One collector made the humorous suggestion that since there "seems" to be many more Ruths, the printer actually made many more of George. Unless I am missing something, that conclusion is preposterous. Ruth was perhaps the only player in the set that went on to greatness. In those days, people did not always keep everything they ever owned. Granted, there were WWI paper drives, but I think the matter is simply that these were minor league and Federal League cards. After a few years, a teenager or young man might go through his Baltimore News cards and look them over and decide to throw them away, but since Ruth was already famous, he would keep the Babe and throw away all the "Joe Schlabotniks". I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

I better shut up and let you get back to researching. Hope all goes well!

Respectfully, Brian Powell