Where have all the 1914 Cracker Jacks gone?
 

Where have all the 1914 Cracker Jacks gone??!!

eBay only has a few handfuls of '14 CJs listed now (nine PSAs and eight SGCs)

Dean's surprisingly only has one listed

Tonyetrade doesn't even have a '14 CJ category anymore

REA only had one listed for this month's auction and five total listed for their Summer auction.

Heritage has three of the Big Boys coming next month where the Joe Jax 1.5 is estimated at $100k+!!

The last four that I have acquired Oakes, Bush, Konetchy and Murphy have all been from private deals with collectors who have upgraded or just moved on to something else.

Are there that many new '14 CJ collectors? I know a handful of complete/near complete sets have sold over the past 12-18 months

I understand for the HOFers, star players and infamous players but the commons are commanding serious premiums.

Anyone else have any thoughts or observations?

I noticed the same thing Tony. I think more people recognized the 14CJ as the premier set that it is as new money discovered the pre war market. Seems to be plenty of 15CJ's available. Maybe it's just cyclical and we have to wait for more to surface. In the meantime, I'll just focus on other parts of my collection.

BTW, looking for a 14CJ Joe Wood in 3-4 range if any members want to sell theirs. Strong price for the right card, thanks in advance.

I passed on a ‘14 CJ Speaker a while back figuring I’d wait for the next auction and I haven’t seen a single one since.

Where are the 1915 high end Cracker Jack’s as well! Only ones at eBay are PSA 5’s or lower with just a couple higher. I have been looking for high end 1915 CJ to add to my set and no luck. Even at the National no 1915 CJ high end for sale. Last nice group came from Mile High Auction last auction none since.

If anyone has any 1915 CJ PSA 7 or higher commons for sale please let me know.

Andy, I have an SGC 9 CJ 15 commons if that helps.....

Guy, your not looking in the right spot!
Theres another Auction House- has about 20+ CJ14's and many 15's as well currently running
Not outting it, just do some legwork guys.

Yes, that’s right. I forgot about this one. Only has a ‘15 Speaker for me though. Not the ‘14.

Not only does that AH have a lot, they have a lot of duplicates.

:D:D:D

I don't have any '14s, but I have nine '15s, just enough to fill one 9-pocket sheet. Got 'em years ago, in a paper grocery sack full of old cards given to me by a retired Navy man who was selling off a vast collection. I am amazed how nice they are, given how fragile. McGraw and Baker are also really stained. No chance I could afford to buy them.

Yeah I saw them and there should be 26 '14 CJs in that auction!
Problem for me is I have most of the ones listed except about five and those offered are low end 1s, 1.5s and 2s but I just put bids on a couple I really want

I guess I will have to upgrade later if I win

I’ve been buying raw low grade ones. And a few Authentics and 1s. I have definitely affected the bargain basement aspect of the 1914 market, as small as that is.

Phil that's what I have been thinking also...people finally appreciating the 14 CJs
I've been picking up a few T206s in the meantime but would rather make progress on my CJs

I always thought the 15's were a slightly more reasonable proposition and far more numerous because of the factory sets.

14 cj
 

Great question. My guess is that the people who have bought them are holding them knowing that there is likely only between 60 — 80 examples of each 1914 card. Great set for people to try to build as well…so tough with many collectors also wanting the key cards.

1914 Cracker Jack SP #93 Del Pratt
 

I hate trimmed cards, but once in awhile you just have to compromise. I have a neighbor that has tons of vintage stuff. I was looking to buy some pre-war stuff from him and asked if he had any 1914 or 1915 Cracker Jack cards. He pulled a low grade 1915 Chief Bender that was trimmed, but I grabbed it because I like Bender and already had the more uncommon 1914 Cracker Jack Bender as an SGC 2. I asked if he had any more and he said "sure, but they are all trimmed" I went back a few day later after he had "pulled" the cards. He had three 1914 Cracker Jacks and about thirty of so 1915 Cracker Jacks. Unfortunately every one of the cards had trimmed the white off of the cards, but at least had retained the white bottom of the card with the players names. I picked up 5 cards (one common 1914 and 4 1915's including Grover Cleveland Alexander and Ray Schalk.
As we looked through his 3 1914's one of them turned out to be SP #93 Del Pratt. I didn't buy the Pratt as we both had to do some homework before trying to make a deal on this card. I want to show you the 5 cards I did purchase and get your thoughts on what a SP like Pratt from 1914 that is clearly severely trimmed might still be worth. His guide was like 5 years old and it showed a VG (which this is not) listed at something like $14,000. He sold me the 5 other cards that i bought for a total of $210. Here is what I bought and the approximate condition of what the 1914 Pratt would be like.

What might be a possible fair offer on the Pratt? Any thoughts?

Rick J
Minnesota

That Cady is the (or was last time I checked) most rare of them all. Think you did very well. Each of the Cady or Alexander are worth more than what you paid total for all.

sorry the Cady is a 1915. The only 1914 in the previous picture is the Blanding. I didn't make that clear and I'm sorry about that. I am still possibly going to negotiate for the 1914 Pratt,

I'm not sure what trimmed CJ's go for but I love the set and those are neat cards you picked up. I guess they would grade "A" at the TPG's unless they have an issue with the size. Too bad some kid had a border fixation, reminds me of when I used to make my mom cut the crust off my PBJ's.

There is a near complete e107 set where the top and side borders are cut off every card. There are a couple of t206 Wagners without borders as well. This dam kid sure left his mark!!

Since this time last year PSA has only graded 138 new CJs!! That averages about 12 new CJs added to the pop reports each month! Here is a breakdown of what has been graded:
PSA 4-------1
PSA 3.5-----2
PSA 3-------9
PSA 2.5-----2
PSA 2-------25
PSA 1.5-----18
PSA 1.5Q----1
PSA 1--------51
PSA 1Q------4
PSA A--------25

So as you see a lot of PSA 1s and As were submitted and graded. That tells me that the high end CJs are already in slabs and there are some low end cards still out there being sent in.

Frank Owens was the lone PSA 4
John McGraw and Wildfire Schulte were the two PSA 3.5s

Surprisingly no Cobbs, WaJos or Mattys graded during this past year!!

Joe Jax, Tinker, Collins, Crawford, Bresnahan, Bender, E. Walsh, Alexander, Gandil, Marquard, Wheat, Speaker, Wagner, Clarke, Jennings, Cicotte and Chance all had 1 each graded

Plank, Wood, and Lajoie all had 2 each graded

McGraw and Carey all had 3 each graded

REA has only had 7 PSA 14' CJs in their past 4 auctions including the lone one in this current auction. Seems like CJs are drying up and becoming harder and harder to acquire in mid to high grades.

What has everyone else been seeing with the '14 CJs? Thoughts?

Would have to agree, I was only able to add one to my collection this year, an SGC 4 Mcinnis, and that was from a board member. I know there is a Cobb 4 coming up in LOTG, you might see that one break records.

I have found it difficult to pick up a nice 1914 HOF'er without it costing an arm and a leg!

Looking at the numbers 1,434 1914 CJ's are registered in the PSA Set Registry across 26 different sets.

The PSA Pop Report lists 5,341 graded so that's about 27% of all the graded PSA CJ's being in registries! At least five of the registered sets have some duplicates.

When is the last time anybody saw a '14 Bresnahan no number or Frank Chance at auction?

https://bid.loveofthegameauctions.co...e?itemid=21273
This is the last No Number I remember from a major AH ...eBay sold one a couple months after this one

One did get pulled from an auction (REA or Heritage??) when it was discovered PSA had graded it but you could still see the erased 17 it has since been deactivated in database

https://bid.loveofthegameauctions.co...e?itemid=21213
Chance sold in the same auction...a CJ collector broke up his collection

eBay has sold a couple and Jay Kaplan currently has two up for sale
For some reason Chance is one of the HOFers that you rarely see come up in any condition.

1914 has been getting harder to find – I just told a collector, if you have the opportunity to get one, grab it if you can get one at a good price.

Of course, Chance only appears in the '14 set. He was replaced by Hal Chase in the '15 set.

One of my prized possessions. Got this in 2018 for $5500. Over-graded for sure (it's a 4 at best) but I'll keep the 5 I guess. There's a PSA 4 in the current Memory Lane auction. https://memorylaneinc.com/site/bids/...e?itemid=80381

https://allthecubs.com/wp-content/up...lexander-s.jpg

Back when the stains didn't count. remember those days? Still a great card!

Interestingly PSA early on did designate these twelve (12) cards with the stains (ST) qualifier!
Bender
Devore
Owens
Huggins
Jennings
Herzog
Magee
Blanding
Bescher
Perring
Nunamaker
Maranville

Personally, I prefer stains on my 1914 CJs

I bought my '14 Bresnahan no number, raw in the late 90s as one of my first-ever eBay purchases, for under $100. Wasn't necessarily planning on selling, but if it's an insane market right now, then that is the type of thing to make me go hmmm.......

Where have all the 1914 Cracker Jacks gone?

My 1914 Tesreau is wondering the same thing about itself.


Brian

Me too.

The only 2 I found last year were originally listed as 1915s...

Great Alexander!! Love the stains!!

I am a CJ 14 collector. Low grades as that is all I can afford. I am on ebay. Watch-33 and have several 14s listed. Have a look.

After going through my collection of CJs yesterday I just realized that I completed a team set…all six cards of the St. Louis Terriers (Federal League):

clearly the extra Brown was just to show off :)

Indeed hard to find. Prada’s.
 

I’ve been collecting this set for 10 years and there’s no question that the past year or two the availability has gone down seemingly 90%.

I believe The “1914 Bresnahan no number” is by far the rarest card in the set with only 24 (or so) examples graded by both companies combined.

And there are a handful of cards I believe, with less than 40 total known copies ever graded between both major companies. Who knows how many have been re-graded so the population is probably even less than that for those handful of cards.

You don’t find those cards for sale anymore. Some haven’t sold in years now.