Vintage collection finds

[FUBAR]

Originally Posted by Matthew H

That find was not in packs. He did find a huge sum of unopened material from the 50's but I think that stuff was sold unopened.

Here he speaks openly of highway robbery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjckQ...eature=related

I meant they were opened by the owner before they were bought, not the buyer opening them.. two ways to interpret my wording.. .my bad

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by FUBAR

I meant they were opened by the owner before they were bought, not the buyer opening them.. two ways to interpret my wording.. .my bad

I get it.

He also "found" 500 unopened boxes of Topps and Bowman. I think they were from 1954-55.

Unfortunately there are probably still a handful of people who haven't heard of catalog auctions or the internet and still call the guy.

[FUBAR]

can you imagine buying 90 mint mantles... what does each one got for nowadays 75k?? 100k?

at 100k... that's 9 million $$ plus they other cards.... this had to be a 15 million dollar + find at today's card values.. crazy!

I would feel guilty taking a guy who doesnt know better for one card let alone over 15,000 cards!

[steve B]

What year was the 52 find? I recall hearing about it, but not the year.

Before I get to my thoughts on the find a couple things
First time I've seen Mr Mint in anything other than a suit, I didn't recognise him at first.
Also the first time I've heard him speak where he didn't sound obnoxious.
Quincy? Framingham? Is he a boston guy? I always figured him as a New York City guy.

If it was mid 80's the deal might not have been such a ripoff. One thing to remember is that when large collections turn up there usually aren't that many people who can come up with enough money. He says he borrowed 25K, and still only was in for 10% of the deal. Even assuming he put none of his own cash into it That's 250K someone had to pay and then wait till the cards sold. And that couldn't be done quickly without temporarily lowering the price.

So sure, The stuff was probably worth way more, but how many dealers or collectores could have paid that without having a quick return available.

A

[Matthew H]

Look how he handles this guys collection. This is only a couple of years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXNgJXt7cMY

I read in the comments that this guys wife died, he had surgery and had to sell his life's collection.

[dwr11]

Originally Posted by steve B

What year was the 52 find? I recall hearing about it, but not the year.

Before I get to my thoughts on the find a couple things
First time I've seen Mr Mint in anything other than a suit, I didn't recognise him at first.
Also the first time I've heard him speak where he didn't sound obnoxious.
Quincy? Framingham? Is he a boston guy? I always figured him as a New York City guy.

If it was mid 80's the deal might not have been such a ripoff. One thing to remember is that when large collections turn up there usually aren't that many people who can come up with enough money. He says he borrowed 25K, and still only was in for 10% of the deal. Even assuming he put none of his own cash into it That's 250K someone had to pay and then wait till the cards sold. And that couldn't be done quickly without temporarily lowering the price.

So sure, The stuff was probably worth way more, but how many dealers or collectores could have paid that without having a quick return available.

A

Mr. Mint's 1952 Topps find was in 1986. From what I remember he purchased everything himself including 65 1952 Mantle's. I think I remember hearing he paid something like $80,000 for everything and sold everything for $310,000. After he made the purchase he was very nervous that he spent to much and blew a lot of the Mantle's out with ads in SCD for around $2500.00 each.

[steve B]

The attitude he shows in the video is the Mr mint I usually think of. And he comes across worse there than in print interviews.

And I'd have tossed him when he tossed the jersey....

But the prices aren't horrible considering a lot of it was lower grade stuff.
Like the set he went through mentioning the stars that had holes. And the others where some of the stars were VG or creased or torn.

And that's coming from someone who really doesn't like Mr Mint. Too much flash and arrogance, plus the one time I called to ask about something he was selling he never returned the call.


The 52 find being 1986 makes sense, I was only paying a little attention to the hobby then. 3-4x profit isn't unusual for a large lot of stuff in any collectible field. Remember, back then 80K would buy an ok house in much of New England, and a whole lot more many other places. Figure on taking that much and tying it up in cards for maybe 2-5 years. Many stamp guys only offer about 10% of the catalog value on average stuff. Mostly because it will be in inventory for years at 50% of catalog. Below average stuff and hard to sell stuff gets even less interest. I just bought a small collection for $100 that probably cataloged around 300. The full time dealer that looked at it first didn't even make an offer.

Steve B

[Leon]

Since we have a ton of new collectors, here is a cut and paste of my one and only "find" which was really just finding the guy who inherited them. I don't know if a find is a "find" unless you are digging through stuff and actually find something...but here it is anyway...It was exciting for me..

this is cut and pasted from around 2005.....


I believe I have seen the last small group of inherited cards from the gentleman in Northern California. It was a very informative situation
in that I got to see a nice PCL collection untainted by modern collectors/dealers. It looks like almost all of the cards have been put into a scrapbook at one time as a majority exhibit strong corners and
back damage, though many backs were spared too....... It was neat to see how they were really collected and in what type of numbers, relative to each other. I believe the only cards I missed out on were all 159 of the Colgans, Red Borders, and Tin Tops (if any), and about 5-7 M101-1/2's....Nothing I could do...they just got sold.......The total for all of the cards I got was about 732'ish. I will probably only sell these through ebay or to a large auction house. I am keeping everything I have an interest in, as utmost and foremost, I am still a collector. Including what I had posted before the grand total breakout is/was (several cards have been sold already to happy board/ebay members):

D310 (12) w/weaver fr....overall gd-vg
D311 (61) all different pr-ex
E90-1 (18) w/Jackson (pr-sold), Joss..overall pr-fr
E90-2 (1) Wagner - nice SGC 20....2 moderate creases
E90-3 (2) common and pr-
E101 (9) w/Evers, Jennings pr-fr....major back damage..
E136 Zeenut '11 (113) w/Weaver in fr...others vg'ish
E136 Zeenut '12 (36) gd-vg+/ex
E136 HR Kisses (2) gd
E136 Zeenut '13 (6) all with coupon
E136 Zeenut '14 (23) 6 with coupon 17 without coupon
E137 Zeenut '15 (67) 24 with coupon w/McMullen 43 w/o coup.w/Risberg, Lefty Williams
E137 Zeenut '16 (1) with coupon
E224 Texas Tommy (5) w/Marsans, w/uncatalogued
E-Unc Big Eater (3) w/ horizontal ex, 1 in gd-vg, 1 pr
H-unc Western Playground (40) complete set vg+
T4 Obak- (2) still unidentified but not Weaver.
T206 Old Mill- (23) w/Cobb, Evers, Chance, Willis.pr-fr
T206 Sweet Caporal ?(1) Cobb 350-460 series...pr.
T212-1 Obak (47) nice mix of framed/frameless
T212-2 Obak (116) about 25 different slogans.. pr-ex-mt
T212-3 Obak (131) w/Weaver pr-nrmt/mt
T217 Mono (8) 3 that don't have back damage......pr-gd
T222 Fatima- (7) all common, 1 high number in fr, 2 cut in half, pr....

wish I could find more of these "finds"...but will just go back to
whittling away like I have been for the past several years......
regards all

[Exhibitman]

Not to defend Rosen, who is thoroughly obnoxious, but we are (mostly) retail buyers and collectors and we tend to think of things as retail buyers and collectors. Rosen is strictly a businessman--his only purpose is to make money on the deal and get out as quickly as he can. His claim to buy it all and pay cash is very powerful stuff, especially for someone who is basically turning over a box of cards he found in an attic. As anyone who's done Ebay knows, retail is work. If you want to wring out every last dime from a group, you have work to do; if you just want cash in hand fast with no effort, wholesalers like Rosen are going to get their discount on the deal. Yeah, the Mantles retailed for more than the price of the whole purchase but Rosen had to put up the cash to buy them all and take the risk of holding and selling them all.