Mayo John Dunlop Auction
 

There is a Mayo Cut Plug John Dunlop on kind of an obscure-ish auction site here:

http://sportscardlink.com/auctions/i...541&id=1106541

It's extremely rare and considered the "Honus" of football cards - its still priced pretty reasonably all things considered. I'm actually considering bidding on it but I wanted to hear others thoughts on the true value of the card. Any thoughts?

If I were chasing this set I'd think this was a good opportunity to get a nice example of that card - and right now at a fair price - but the price of this card is the reason I gave up chasing the set.

I definitely want to just own a card from the set. A couple of those lower priced ones are intriguing, just to say I have and to have a new oldest card in my collection.

Kevin, did you check VCP? There's no guarantee they have it, but for 3.99 worth a try. Even with your post here, assuming the min bid isn't already above market, someone may get a deal - that AH was never on my radar anyway. And I think the card has really good eye appeal for the grade.

I believe there was a hidden reserve on that card and it didn't sell. Not a big fan of hidden reserves.

jeff

Hi Jeff, I just saw that too - it shows 4 bids, so someone probably met that minimum bid, but it also shows a starting bid of 1$ and it isn't displaying how high the bidding got which is strange. Interestingly about 18 of them sold - that's the most I've ever noticed in a single auction - that's about half the set done and the toughest card out of the way had someone gone after all of them.

Finally, I was reading the inside cover of the new GG yesterday and it mentions there are only 4 known examples.... Does that sound about right? I had no idea the card was that rare.

When I looked at that Dunlop yesterday (or the day before?) before the bidding ended, it was up over $10K and had not yet reached its reserve. I don't believe another bid was place on it but could be wrong.

The card is rare, but not POP 4 rare. Maybe someone meant there were 4 at a certain grade? Old articles (70s-80s) place the total POP of the Dunlop at under 10. More recently I've seen numbers that say its more like 20+ that are known to exist. Once the card started getting exposure and the player on it was identified, copies started coming out of the woodwork.

It's still one of my all-time favorite cards but the real star of the Mayo set is the Frank Hinkey card. He was THE MAN and hope someone snagged the one that was in that auction. If it was SGC I probably would have taken a run at it. Grading of Mayos is soooo inconsistent that I don't even try to cross them.

jeff

Thanks Jeff - I just googled to find what you said about Hinkey in the pre-war thread. I noticed your Mayos were SGC. I understand the risk about paying a lot for a card and then not having it cross. I think the eye appeal is pretty strong on this one though. I looked at a few online including an SGC 1.5 and liked this one better. The BVG holder is unexpected though. Its outside my collecting interest, but I was wondering about the speculation aspect. I called today and they said they were taking offers on it. Even with the rarity, I don't see this hitting 80K like that other card, but now that I say that it will probably triple or something :). Is it known why this one is rarer than the others? Not because everyone threw it out because it was nameless, is it?

Speculation has always been that the Dunlop was scarce because it was nameless but nobody knows for sure. If you like the Mayo set, you GOTTA get one ;-)

Sorry for the switch in topic. I was talking about not picking up and crossing the Hinkey that was in the auction. I think it was a PSA 3 which is a good grade for that card but at this point I'm seeking SGC50 and wouldn't risk trying to cross it.

jeff

I didn't bid but my impression was that the reserve had been met? I'm kind of 50/5p on whether I missed out on the biggest football card in history. I kind of feel like in 5 years it will be worth 100k IF people still watch football like they do now and aren't disturbed by the obvious damning issue of head injuries. It's actually not clear if it sold since it says there is an asterisk on the next bid will hit the reserve and there is no asterisk. The history is kind of odd though since it only goes up to 5k and it then lists an 11k hammer price with a BP. Kind of seems like this would have done better in a larger AH but nonetheless I have non-buyers remorse.

Thanks Jeff. Another mystery (reason for Dunlop rarity). I thought you stayed away from the it because it wasn't in the holder you collected the rest of the set in.

Kevin, its not over - you can still get it. I talked to the AH yesterday. I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I think the jist of it was, the reserve was hidden at the start of the auction, so it did get bids, then towards the end the reserve was revealed and it wasn't met. I don't think that's typically how it works. A semi-hidden reserve I guess.

I think a 10K offer takes it. One other thing I'd be concerned about on this card beyond any impact the serious health issues of former NFL players may have on the future of the sport is the set itself. It is a college football set of players that won't be found in any HOF. I'm just playing Devil's advocate - from a football history point of view, I think it's significant. But, there's also a Mayo baseball set and I never got the sense it was hugely popular.

That's pretty common in auctions that have reserves. At some point near the end they reveal the reserve to try and encourage people to push the price over the goal line. I personally don't like hidden reserve auctions to rarely ever bid on them.

Interesting - I'm so used to eBay, I actually still get tripped up forgetting the BP sometimes :). I don't like reserves either - gives me the feeling I may be wasting my time by bidding. I'd rather just see the reserve reflected in the minimum start bid.

Why do you think 10k takes it though? So is what was displayed actually just the reserve? and this is why the bidding only went up to 5k? I dont get it :)

To be clear, the bidding was a bit above $10K but below the reserve amount when I looked at it a day or so before it ended. I think it STARTED at $5K.

jeff

The information given when you click on history is confusing to me as well -
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OC...o=w925-h594-no

I think the seller wants to sell based on the conversation I had with the AH - I could be wrong - I said 10K because I knew the reserve was around there. What I'm not sure on is if it sells at auction, the AH gets the BP - I have no idea what they get if they broker a deal. If they get a percentage, the seller has to factor that into any offer.

Mike, I think I get it. The bidding went up to 5,200 "naturally". Then toward the end of the auction, the reserve of 10,650 was revealed. That's my guess at least. Did you ever get into the Mayo set?

Yeah, that is a confusing way to describe it! I didn't look at the bid history ... just the current bid and thought it was bid up to $10,650.

That card is definitely worth more than the $5,200 bid but this is exactly what happens sometimes when there are hidden reserves. People just don't bid it up as they feel bidding is kinda worthless if there's a reserve you're essentially competing against as well as everybody else.

jeff

I did and then I sold most of what I had in the first BST auction - one or two didn't sell so I still have an example - I think they are really nice cards, but I just had too much stuff.

I can understand :). I like the size of the set, the aesthetics and I like the "condition sensitiveness" - to me its more fun trying to find an example with decent eye appeal when the vast majority are pretty beat up. I just can't get into another set where every card is expensive though.

I'm going to bump this one last time as I have to admit, I got really interested.

I found a Beckett source saying that these Mayo cards hit smack in a card dead spot. The jist of it is in 1887, the hobby got Old Judge cards, but in 1890, a tobacco monopoly was formed (ATC) which halted card production which was a way to compete through product differentiation. But, Mayo wasn't part of the tobacco monopoly. They'd have no reason not to issue cards and it could be argued an incentive to do so. Not sure if it's a coincidence, but it looks like Mayo wasn't selling cigarettes either, maybe there was just no way to compete with the monopoly on cigarettes, but they could stay in business selling a different product (I'd call it chewing tobacco, but Mayo's tag line mentions it could be rolled into cigarettes as well). I suspect economic historians have written on this - I'm just speculating.

On the player side, as a pro football collector, I always thought not only are these college players, but you only get three different schools who were football powerhouses at the time, but not in the present day. Then something Jeff wrote in the pre-war thread caught my eye:

Thomas "Doggie" Trenchard played football at Princeton and was an All-American in 1893. He was an early professional football player, playing for the Latrobe Athletic Association and Allegheny Athletic Association from 1895 - 1898.....

How does this fit into pro football history? It could be argued that it's pretty significant. There is a display in the HOF of the Allegheny AA 1892 expense sheet for a game showing they paid Pudge Heffelfinger and two other players. Before that it was thought that John Brallier who played for Latrobe in 1895 was the first pro. My point being, I'm thinking the Trenchard is the earliest card of a pro football player which is pretty cool.

Finally, as someone who lived in Pittsburgh for a time, I like the idea of Pittsburgh as the "cradle of professionalism", but I also think these "social clubs" i.e. athletic associations existed in New York and Chicago as well in the same time period. Hard not to think at least one of them hired some ringers at some point....

DezHood,

Given your recent comments regarding Doggie Trenchard and early Pittsburgh Professional Football Teams I thought you may enjoy these two pics. They are 8x10 cabinet photos of the 1899 Duquesne Country and Athletic Club (DC&AC). Some consider this team the first great professional football team. These photos were acquired from the estate of Charles Gelbert (far right, on knee with a nice right-eye shiner). Doggie Trenchard is behind Gelbert.

Cheers

Mark

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/r...oads/image.jpg

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/r...ds/image_1.jpg

Wow - nice - thanks Mark. Great items!

Awesome photos, Mark! Very, very nice. Been looking for a photo of that time for quite a while.

jeff

Looks like Langdon "Biffy" Lea played for the AAA as well. Now I'm curious who else among this group played football after graduation.....

John Spano wrote an excellent series of articles on the Mayo set for Gridiron Greats a few years ago and it talks about all of the cards and what he was able to dig up about the players.

Highly recommend it if you can snag those editions.

jeff

Thanks Jeff. I figured GG would have something - I put it on my To Do list to order that back issue.

On a related note - I see what you mean about Hinkey now - wow lots of articles about him. Where are you with the set btw? You just need the Dunlop?

Looking at John's articles, a number of the players coached in the college ranks - as for the pros, he mentions that Frank Hinkey coached the Dayton Triangles of the NFL in 1921 and Thomas Trenchard played for professional football teams in Western Pennsylvania including Latrobe and Allegheny - a lot of the players pictured served in the Spanish American War and some in WW I

For my second set ;-) It's no great secret as they are both listed on the SGC registry but I have two complete sets of Mayos minus one Dunlop. Have had plenty of chances to pick up a second but would rather spend the $$$ on something else.

Selling my triples and quadruples for anyone interested ...

jeff

Thanks Mike - sounds like good reading - first I'm hearing of Hinkey coaching the Triangles.

Jeff, you must really like this set :) - please pm me your list of duplicates - I'd like to have a low grade example of one of these in my collection.

It really wasn't on purpose that I ended up with two but I do LOVE this set. I put together one and finished it in 2013 and then lucked into a chance to pick up another with a bunch of higher grades in it than I had. Since I was looking to upgrade my set anyway, this helped a lot. Been upgrading ever since and that means I've collected up some triples.

Was originally going to sell off my 2nd set like I did my 2nd Chicle set but decided to hang onto it for a while.

jeff

P.S. The article on Mayo in Gridiron Greats spans three issues. One article is on Yale players, one is on Princeton, and the last on Harvard.

Interesting stuff. We had a Dunlop + a number of other Mayo FB cards and boxers walk in to our shop about 4 years ago. Today we had 6 of them (no Dunlop of course/unfortunately) walk in. What are the odds? They appear to be trimmed (very minimal) though they have a great appearance otherwise. Just sent them off to SGC. The group included Hinkey, Thorpe, Poe, Murphy, Manahan and 1 other.

That's really cool, Lou. Most of those are difficult ones to find, too.

There's no Thorpe in the Mayo set, though. Maybe it is Thorne?

jeff

Saw this Dunlop got moved to ebay. Starting bid of $14,995.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351726287085...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

jeff

I saw the one on eBay too. I like the eye appeal of the one that started the post much better.

Yes. Sorry for the error. Thorne not Thorpe.

My guess is that the "reserve" was $11K. Probably in the neighborhood of the value, but the "gouge" or "scratch-out" in the bottom of the jersey worries me although the overall eye-appeal is much nicer than the typical Fair or Good card.

The N302 is one of my favorite football issues (after '48 Leaf) and I always enjoy reading discussions about them and the opportunity to see and share images. Here are a couple of the favorites in my near set...

http://1948leaffootball.webs.com/Ima...ge/Mayo001.jpg

Hi Scott - nice cards - glad you jumped in. What's your concern with the issue on the jersey? Are you thinking other TPG won't give higher than an Auth?

Note that it appears that an "S" is scratched/carved into the surface inside the red circle. I'm guessing PSA and SGC would probably holder it in a POOR rather than FAIR.

http://1948leaffootball.webs.com/Ima...age/Dunlop.jpg

Thanks Scott - I figured you'd say that. I could live with a 1, but to spend all that money to cross to an Auth - that would hurt me. A lot of collectors probably wouldn't care though.

+1

I think it depends on whether someone is buying the flip or the card. Lots of Auth cards look 50x better than PSA 1 or PSA 1.5 cards that are all beat up. To me, until you get to a VG level on this card, I focus on eye appeal.

jeff