T220 Silver - Uncut Edition

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

The discussion involving the T218's reminded me of this newspaper clip that I posted here awhile back would this have been T218's or could it have been some other issue? It was in a February 11 1911 newspaper.

Interesting, it’s not T218, E229, T224, T230. None of these have a Robert Williamson in the checklist, or a person in it close to that. I don’t know what cigarette card this could be…

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

Interesting, it’s not T218, E229, T224, T230. None of these have a Robert Williamson in the checklist, or a person in it close to that. I don’t know what cigarette card this could be…

It's actually kind of sad I remember doing some research on it and couldn't find anything on a Robert Williamson in any Tobacco sets. I thought maybe it was a card that looked like her brother and she was hoping it was him maybe R.P. Williams

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Pat R

It's actually kind of sad I remember doing some research on it and couldn't find anything on a Robert Williamson in any Tobacco sets. I thought maybe it was a card that looked like her brother and she was hoping it was him maybe R.P. Williams

If she hasn’t seen him in 35 years in 1911, it must be someone older than most of the athletes in T218, which is really a collection of the top track athletes in America in 1908. Williams was a talented sprinter of the 1910 period. Williams is never referred to as Williamson as far as I’ve ever seen. He also never is referred to by his first name though, it’s always R.P, and he is one of the more obscure runners in the issue. I don’t think this is our man, but I could be wrong.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by G1911

If she hasn’t seen him in 35 years in 1911, it must be someone older than most of the athletes in T218, which is really a collection of the top track athletes in America in 1908. Williams was a talented sprinter of the 1910 period. Williams is never referred to as Williamson as far as I’ve ever seen. He also never is referred to by his first name though, it’s always R.P, and he is one of the more obscure runners in the issue. I don’t think this is our man, but I could be wrong.

Makes sense to me Greg, I don't know the set so I was only going off the checklist I thought because she said it was an older photo maybe ther were some athletes that were older when the cards came out like the T220 Donovan.

[G1911]

Posted in the pick up thread, but this belongs here for the record. McAuliffe probably comes from the same period of pre-production as the sheets. Whether it was machine cut or handcut originally is impossible to tell for sure at this remove and with so much edge damage (I don't think the originally cut edges are still present on the card anymore), but it was probably handcut.

It matches perfectly the cards on the sheet, blank back, missing the layer of silver. This card presumably does not come from the same source as the sheets, as it's been in the hobby for years before them and has seen a lot more abuse. If it was from these sheets, they can't have been together in many decades.

The most interesting part to me is the color. Even with all the damage and abuse, it is a much bolder printing than the issued cards, which are usually pretty bolded already. I mentioned this earlier about the sheets, but wasn't sure if it was because 1) they'd been presumably stored somewhere dark for a century and hadn't been exposed much and all cards originally were brighter or 2) the proofs had more color to them. Seems that it is definitely 2.

[G1911]

So the rest of them are out, though I'm late to the party. Apparently the buyer of the Moore and Beecher's didn't pay or was a shill bidder (the utter incompetency of the seller would indicate they couldn't figure out how to shill bid...).

They were sold on May 5 through Weiss, and poorly listed. This is a terrible choice by the seller, not the kind of place for a niche item like these. The people who saw them got steals.

The Jas. J. Corbett went for $400, one fourth the value of the last sale of a single Corbett card. The Dempsey sold for the most of them all at $500. The rest did $200-$340.

In addition to those that had appeared before, Erne, Choynski, Randall, Jas J. Corbett and Coburn appeared.

I bought from one of the winners who was kind enough to flip them my way and now have 20 of the 23 in hand. Ryan and McAuliffe apparently were not in the find at all. One of these 2 cards is almost certainly the bottom left corner panel. Interesting that the only stand-alone proof card known is a McAuliffe. Unlikely it came from the same original source though, as that one was sold competently.

I've gone over the images and am building another work-up of which cards go where. With 20 in hand and Choynski being easy to place, we might be able to do most of it now. I'm going to take the 5 I got in hand today and compare them to what I have worked up before posting an image. Hopefully we can learn something from the final arrangement.

Perhaps the most impressive part of this whole discovery is the absolute stupidity of the seller, an antiques dealer they were consigned too. He listed them as old reprints with no helpful keywords, didn't even ID the set, and sold the best one and the bulk of them for almost nothing. He pulled Carney, Mccoy and Dempsey from eBay after it finally became apparent that he had something. The Dempsey was over $2,300 with like 4 days left on eBay when he yanked it. Then he had it poorly listed in an auction house that this is not a fit for at all, and sold it for $500. He got absolutely robbed on the Corbett, even after he must have figured out he got robbed on the Donovan. I don't see a problem with finding a good deal, but this amount of stacking terrible choices by a professional dealer who should no so much better makes me feel bad for whoever it was that originally found these and brought them to him. They are boxing, it's not like finding a Wagner or retirement, but they lost thousands and thousands of dollars by the sheer incompetence of the professional they brought them too. Just 5 minutes of research and a drop of common sense would have prevented that.

[Exhibitman]

Dealer? Yes. Professional? Not so much, apparently.

These sorts of obscure item screw-ups are not uncommon and are at times made by big-time dealers who should know better. One that comes to mind was an utterly stupid set of BINs on 1961 Bell Brand Lakers cards by a dealer big enough to know better. I know several basketball collectors who would have paid 10X his BINs without even blinking. I asked him WTF and his excuse was that he didn't know how to price them. If so, run a damn auction.

But I digress...

Looking forward to seeing the composite. But don't forget that they might be more than one sheet, if the pieces do not seem to work out as a single sheet.