Newly Discovered Old Judge Player

[piecesofthegame]

After over 15 years of being on this wonderful forum, this is the first time I am starting a thread. I felt I would need something pretty special to share if I would do so. So here’s the story.

I bought a card from a guy on eBay, managed to make personal contact with him to see if he had anything else I might be interested in, and he sent me a scan of a couple random items from a tobacco card lot he had acquired in Chicago. He’s a stamp collector, not a sports guy. You will see the scan he sent at the end of the thread. Two of the three items were common items of no interest to me. The third was an Old Judge player I had never heard of...Roscoe Coughlin, Chicago Maroons. So I got out the Old Judge book to look him up...and found him NOWHERE. Then I knew this was special. I asked him what he wanted for it and he said he had to do some research, well unfortunately for him, that meant taking it to a dealer. In the meantime I attempted to get in touch with Jay Miller but apparently my message did not get through. I begged him NOT to sell before allowing me the chance to beat his best offer but he was in too much of a rush to sell, and probably cost himself a lot of money (I think he sold it for $4K plus a stamp collection which appealed to him as a stamp collector).

Jay and I have discussed the card since then and he encouraged me to post this along with the image and he will weigh in on it as well. It’s really painful to discuss as this one got away from me but I guess the only joy I will get is introducing a new Old Judge player to the collecting world! My one remaining question would be this...
When was the last discovery of a new OJ player, not a new pose, but a new player? Another question might be...
Does anyone know when the last surviving player from the OJ set died?

This player, Roscoe Coughlin, had a rather short and uneventful career but lived an interesting life according to Wikipedia, living until 1951 and serving in the Spanish American war in the late 1800s.

I think this is a real unique discovery, the kind that I may never find again but wanted to share with you folks!


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