E123 Curtis Ireland Candy

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Posted By: paulstratton

How tough are these? I picked this up as a type awhile back and just haven't seen many(any) since. Maybe I'm just not paying attention.

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Posted By: David Vargha

Very tough. You don't see many of them.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: leon

These are very scarce. Except for 1-2 small groups I have seen they almost never come up for sale. This is one of the series Burdick didn't even know about and didn't catalogue. Bert Sugar gave it the E123 designation in The Sports Collectors Bible....and that designation stuck, as it should have...regards

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Same card fronts as the more common Willards Chocolates, a Canadian issue.
I haven't seen more than a handful of e123s in the last decade.

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Posted By: David Smith

About 10 years ago, I found an antiques dealer who had a group of cards. Most were American Caramel's (E 120, etc including a Cobb) but about 20 were Curtis Ireland's. The guy wanted $1,300 for the lot but I didn't have the money to buy them.

I told my card collecting Mentor at that time (he is an Old time collector, who has/had a T206 Wagner and introduced me to Bill Mastro) about them. He went to see them and determined they were real. After doing so, he whipped out $1,000 in cash and said to the dealer, "Take it or leave it". The dealer thought for a moment or two and finally said, "done".

I don't remember how many cards were in the group but I know there were at least 50 and probably more. The Cobb card had paper stuck to the back but my Mentor was able to get it off without any damage to the back.

As a finder's reward, he gave me this Curtis Ireland from the group and an E 120.

Edited to add- The name is hard to read but the player is E H Sheely.


David

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Posted By: paulstratton

Thanks guys. I knew they were tough, but I don't follow them too closely. Any guesses as to the ratio of Willards to Irelands? 10 to 1? 20 to 1?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Thank you, David.

That is one fine story, and nice to see the card posted. I'd much rather read that type of narrative than read population report stuff. What you posted, THAT is what collecting is about. Learning, mentoring, remembering, passing it on to younger/newer collectors later on.

Great!

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Posted By: paulstratton

David,

When you brought up your "Mentor"...I was sure the next post was going to be about George, Jerry, Banya, etc...nice restraint Barry...How do you become a "buff" anyway?

Cool story though.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That is exactly what came to mind, but sometimes you do just have to let it go.