Backstory - Morehouse Bakery Ruth, Jackson et al discovery in Mass

[Belfast1933]

Hello all

I’ve really been looking forward to sharing the full story here of the recent discovery of the Morehouse Bakery Ruth (2!), Joe Jackson, Jim Thorpe and several other HOFers, stars and commons which all happened at a garage sale in Danvers Mass, about 16 miles from Lawrence, the home of the Morehouse Bakery

Brian Dwyer and PJ Kinsella from REA have been fantastic partners on this and PJ wrote a great story which I’ll link below. But I wanted to also share the really fun back story to how we even got to this point.

As we were preparing to sell my wife’s childhood home in Danvers Mass, we decided to have a garage sale to help clear out some unneeded items (sidebar advice - don’t bother with garage sales anymore… Facebook marketplace is your friend here!). While I was managing a few yard sale customers, a neighbor came by on his bike to introduce himself and just be friendly and neighborly. When he began to discuss baseball cards, of course my antenna went up - when he said they were passed down to him from his father, I did some calendar math on my head and figured these cards may actually be going back quite a few years.

Turns out, I didn’t go back far enough - most of his 800+ collection of cards were pre-war, lots of nice T206’s, T205’s and all the way up to some beauties from late 40’s Bowman into the early 50’s Topps and Bowman.

I won’t repeat what PJ covered so nicely in the story about the multiple spreadsheets that “John” sent me but I will add some fun color - when I saw the spreadsheet with the Morehouse cards, the names (Jackson, Brown, Thorpe, Felsh, etc) were very familiar of course. But the issue itself wasn’t familiar to me. So I did what I always do when I am looking for expert help…

I reach out to Don Hontz (most of you know Don here) and to the Net54 experts here. And neither source disappointed! Lots of great advice and background on the Morehouse issue. Don specifically connected me with a pal who was super helpful…

“Jeff… that Jackson card has only been RUMORED to exist. It has never been graded or bought/sold publically”

[Insert blown mind here!]

My initial thoughts of buying the collection outright just flew out the window - I was not going to try and take advantage of John’s lack of hobby knowledge (he had a 20+ year old price guide with him when I first saw his collection). Instead, I hoped that John would agree to “hire” me to help him sell these treasures.

One more bit of fun backstory here that didn’t make PJ’s terrific story was when I called John to confirm that we were still on to meet and see the cards on an upcoming Sunday - he told me “… by the way, I found a few other cards that I didn’t add the the spreadsheets”

When he mentioned something about “…the better of the two Ruth cards” I had to ask my wife if I was reading this text message right!

[mind blown occurrence #2!]

Again, PJ’s story covers all of the efforts and joyful work that John and I put into the process of selecting REA to be our partners for this historic collection. And as many of you know, I’ve also been having a blast helping John to privately sell the rest of his collection of prewar cards (20 more just came back from PSA yesterday!)

It’s all been a crazy fun ride and many of YOU here were super helpful in making this a well-informed, joy ride.

John and his wife and my wife and I are actually planning to have an “Auction Watch Party” kick off next Friday when the REA auction goes live at noon (John’s idea - love it!)

Sorry I couldn’t share details until now - the backstory was understandable and intentionally embargoed until REA was able to land their national story (this past Sunday in the Athletic/New York Times) and then in the hobby online journal, Sports Collectors Daily.)

But my own first stop with the backstory to the backstory HAD to be here - I look forward to seeing you all at upcoming events so we can chat more about this all.

You just got to love this hobby (And garage sales!)

Here are some photos of the day I first saw this collection…

And here is PJ’s full story that just posted last night

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...eading-to-rea/

[scooter729]

Amazing - we all dream about something like this. Glad you got to experience this first-hand!

[jbsports33]

I have been all over this story today, Jeff! Really cool and glad it's helped expand your knowledge. Did see you at the Boston show (Shriner's Show) and noticed you had some great stuff - just did not get a chance to say hi! Over the years it's funny the story mentioned the old Standard Catalog (2001). That was my first book when I really started in pre-war, had so many great resources and used that with the auction catalog from Barry Halper. I was so hooked by then; I never have stopped buying and selling pre-war. Those Morehouse cards are so unique to the hobby that you should get lots of interest.

I am familiar with Lawrence ,MA history and was up there years ago talking with the historical society about boxing history and sports traditions. Still have one of the original photos we ended up talking about. I have had many boxings pieces in the past and New England in general has some of the best history about the sport. Lawrence was the scene of many boxing matches, and the local baseball field was used for many of them from the 1890s to about the 1940s.

About 15 years ago I helped someone sell the rarest boxing card from the 1948 Leaf set. I as well use my hobby experiences to help others sell and have helped many throughout New England over the years. Great way to give back a bit, the knowledge, and experiences. I know we ran into each other a few times, but if you ever what to talk, come by the Dedham, MA show sometime!

Good Luck and your website looks great!

[theshowandme]

Great story, Jeff

It was great meeting you at the Shriners show.

Wish we had gotten a pic together.

Next time.

Good luck to your friend on the auctions!

-Don

[Golfcollector]

Very proud to be the owner of a Sam Crawford Morehouse Baking. Curious to see if one will be part of the REA offering.

Even with this massive find, these cards are very rare!

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[Belfast1933]

Originally Posted by Golfcollector

Very proud to be the owner of a Sam Crawford Morehouse Baking. Curious to see if one will be part of the REA offering.

Even with this massive find, these cards are very rare!

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Dave, great card! And good news - you will still be the one/only Crawford owner… there is not a Crawford in this Morehouse find

Jeff

[Neal]

Thank you for sharing the story!
Best of luck in the auction!

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

[Snowman]

This is amazing! So awesome.

[horzverti]

Great story. Thanks for sharing. I want one now

[pherbener]

Amazing! Thank you for sharing this Jeff. Incredible stuff and I appreciate you sharing the backstory here. I've had a crazy past few days so I will have to go back and read the articles. Nice to see that there's stuff like this still in the wild.

[tiger8mush]

Thanks for sharing and best of luck with the auction!

BTW Jeff, are you or "John" keeping any of the cards as a memento or is the entire collection being auctioned?

[Belfast1933]

Originally Posted by tiger8mush

Thanks for sharing and best of luck with the auction!

BTW Jeff, are you or "John" keeping any of the cards as a memento or is the entire collection being auctioned?

Thx Rob! Yes, I am keeping these 3 mementos - John is not a collector but I fully expect that he’ll come by from time to time to visit this trio!

[mrreality68]

Wow and Wow

Cool story and thanks for sharing

We will all be watching with interest and hopefully someone on this forum wins the Jackson, Ruth, and Thorpe cards.

Perhaps Leon can start taking a collection and we can by partial shares of it...Just kidding

[GeoPoto]

Not a hall-of-famer, but also (for now) the only one processed by PSA, sporting a great -for-a-golfer name, Howie Shanks.

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[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Belfast1933

...(sidebar advice - don’t bother with garage sales anymore… Facebook marketplace is your friend here!)...

While facebook marketplace may be your friend, this entire story wouldn't have happened without the garage sale.

Just sayin'

[Belfast1933]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

While facebook marketplace may be your friend, this entire story wouldn't have happened without the garage sale.

Just sayin'

Truth!

[BigfootIsReal]

Wow, looks like the Ruth kind of tanked. Thought it would break a Million.

[samosa4u]

Buyer got a great deal. In a few years, he will double his money.