Pep Young, #107 in W514... He's in the Hall of Fame

[FrankWakefield]

90+ years ago, Royce Middlebrook Youngs, of Texas, played baseball. Eventually, he made it to the majors, he played for Mr. McGraw's Giants. He was a solid outfielder, and hitter. He played under the name of Ross Young, nickname "Pep".

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...oungro01.shtml




A few things. Ross Youngs played most of 10 seasons. He died at age 30, from Brights Disease, which cut short his promising career. He was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 1972. Addie Joss, who died age 31, played only 9 seasons, and was inducted in 1978. Youngs may well have had the shortest life of all Hall of Famers.

That W514 of Youngs has a "Pep" Young caption, and a common price in the 2010 edition of The Standard Catalog. In an exchange of emails with our dutiful Bob Lemke, I think that oversight will be corrected in a future edition of The Standard Catalog.

His E120 has a "Ross Young" caption and a HOF price.
His E121 has a "Pep Young" caption and a common price.
His E122 has a "Pep Young" caption and a common price.
His W573 has a "Ross Young" caption and a HOF price.
His W575 has a "Ross Young" caption and a HOF price.
His 1922 Exhibit has a "Ross Young" caption and a HOF price.


At least for the E121, it says Pep Young, and shows "2nd B Detroit Americans", so that may well be Ralph Stuart Young on there. I don't see where he had the nickname "Pep" like Ross did. Ross hit left handed, Ralph was a switch hitter, the image shows the follow through from a left handed swing so that doesn't tell us much.

Even if the E cards aren't Ross Youngs, that W514 is.

There aren't many cards of this HOFer, due to his short career. And a few of the cards are sleepers because of the name game.

Anyone else ever notice that the price guides have missed some of the cards of this Hall of Fame player?

[fkw]

Kinda looks like a "D" on the cap of the E121 to me.

Good call on the W514

[Matt]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

His E121 has a "Pep Young" caption and a common price.

Frank - as you can see above, Ross Youngs' E121 says Ross. The one labeled Pepp depicts the Tigers player and is priced correctly.

[fkw]

The image on the W514 is exacly like Ross Youngs

BTW...... The W514 is NOW Ross Youngs "rookie" card too

With W514's 1919-21 date, it older IMO than the 1921-23 E220 and 1921 D383 Koester, the 2 other cards said to be his rookies before.

IMO the value on that card just jumped 10X

[bcbgcbrcb]

Great discovery, Frank. You are correct, the W514 would definitively be the true rookie card of Ross Youngs.

[DanP]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Great discovery, Frank. You are correct, the W514 would definitively be the true rookie card of Ross Youngs.

Stop sniffing around where you don't need to Frank!! I finally got his RC a few months ago! LOL .... nice work. Dan

[sreader3]

Great find Frank!

It took 90 years to discover Ross Youngs' rookie card. Just goes to show that our hobby is still in its infancy (let's say, the "third inning") as far as knowledge goes and that a lot of exciting discoveries are still to be made.

BTW, there was an ebay sale of a W514 Pep Young #107 PSA 7 not to long ago for sub-$50. You made someone's day.

[triwak]

Great discovery!! I've always found it crazy that his last name is misspelled on almost EVERY contemporary card. You'd think for a HOF caliber player, the correct spelling would have been more widely known?

Edited to add: OK, I now see from the above baseball reference link, that apparently he chose to play as Ross Young (no "s").

[FrankWakefield]

From what I can see, he played as Ross Young. Not Youngs. And he had the nickname Pep early on... as did some other players. But I don't recall any Pep's lately.

[brianp-beme]

I latched on to the W514 Youngs connection years ago, even told a few collectors about it. But I never associated it as being a 'rookie' card. My collecting has never worked that way. If my mind was wired into rookie collecting, and I was a little more financially motivated, I could have made a handy profit stockpiling these cards.

Brian

[Matt]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

If my mind was wired into rookie collecting, and I was a little more financially motivated, I could have made a handy profit stockpiling these cards.

I'm doubtful the card is going to skyrocket in value - the card is relatively plentiful and there aren't a ton of pre-war rookie card collectors out there. It certainly will increase with the recognition of it being the card of a HOFer, but IMO it won't carry that much of a premium over other W514 HOFers.

[DanP]

Originally Posted by Matt

I'm doubtful the card is going to skyrocket in value - the card is relatively plentiful and there aren't a ton of pre-war rookie card collectors out there. It certainly will increase with the recognition of it being the card of a HOFer, but IMO it won't carry that much of a premium over other W514 HOFers.

I think you're right. I am a RC collector and could care less if I ever get one of those cards (they're ugly). If it's very cheap I may pick one up, but I'll always consider the Koester Bread his RC.

Dan

[z28jd]

We talked about this cards years ago on here when Hal Lewis was trying to get his HOF rookie card set. I have the highest graded SGC one(60) I bought back in 2003 off ebay for $11 and got it that cheap because even when it's nice looking its still a strip card and the seller didn't label it as a Ross Youngs rookie.

I knew from reading this board at the time what I was buying and honestly it was the only reason I bought a strip card of him....well,that and the $11 price tag which included shipping

[brianp-beme]

I wasn't talking about mega money, but this card has never normally been identified as Hall of Famer when people have sold it, as it is not listed in the catalogues as anything but a common player. The fact that it is perhaps his rookie card on top of this will probably multiple 4 to 6 times the value of what was previously viewed by most as a common. Like I said, a handy profit could have been made by scooping them up at a common price.

Brian

[docpatlv]

z28jd...

Now there's a board member I haven't seen post in a looooonnng while.

Welcome back.

Mike

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

It's been twenty years since I examined these, but weren't both issues loaded with improper spellings of surnames? Come to think of it, they couldn't even spell first names/nicknames correctly much of the time! Lou Blue comes to mind, as does some infraction on Heilmann.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by docpatlv

z28jd...

Now there's a board member I haven't seen post in a looooonnng while.

Welcome back.

Mike

People come and go but it seems like they can never leave for good . John (Zdude) and I have emailed several times over the years. His mom (who I have never met, seen or communicated with) has the hots for me . I think it's my legs....btw, this is a running joke.

edited to say "nice work Frank, very nice"

[ethicsprof]

yes, welcome back.
also great to see ole Hal Lewis' name in print again.

all the best,

barry

[z28jd]

I've been here,just been lurking the whole time usually writing people through emails or private messages. I only really collect Old Judge cards and only buy 10-15 a year,don't go to shows or sell anything so there isn't much new for me to talk about. I've also been busy writing and just put out a new book I won't promote because its a little off subject,baseball,but way too new for the board.

Here's another project I do weekly people here might like(if it's okay with Leon to post the link to my work)

http://www.piratesprospects.com/cate...irates-history


Didn't want to get this too far off subject so feel free to go back to the Pep Young price guide error. I'm actually shocked it's still listed wrong because I know Hal wanted to make sure he had the earliest cards for everyone and at the time he was looking for the Koester Bread when the subject came up

Great bit of detective work frank.

Tony

I've been collecting this strip card set for a couple years now, and never put the Ross Young (Pep) connection together. I picked up a Pep Young VG-3 for $25 last year, but even the low-tier HOF's (if such a thing exists) of this set usually range between $75 - $125. 10X value might be much, but definitely 3-5X. Nice to increase the value of a card in a collection by doing nothing but homework, great find Frank.

Another w514 anomaly seems to be the "weighted set" score given by SGC, on the Bill Southworth (#16). All HOF get at least a 3X "weight" over commons (except for Ad Luque 2X) in this set, on their site. But the Southworth (a HOF) is the same as a common (1X). I've contacted them a couple times about it but nothing has changed. Oh well, details...

Great to see someone is paying attention to probably the best set offered during the deadball - liveball transitional years.

[SteveVerkman]

Just wanted to let everyone interested know that I am currently writing up a partial E220 set for our next auction and there is a Pep Young card in the set with him fielding in what looks like a Detroit uniform, and he is identified as S.S. Detroit American. There is a separate card of Ross Youngs in this set, but unfortunately it was not in this collection.