T206 find at an antique show over the weekend

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Posted By: Pete Z.

This past weekend I came across an antique dealer at a show who had a book of about 100 t206s that he was selling for someone who had inherited them. He had most of the HOFers in the set except for the obvious rarities. Condition on the cards ranged from good to excellent, and most had piedmont backs. I blew my wad cherry-picking about 10 cards, which he sold me for a reasonable price. An interesting thing is that every card measured exactly the same. Since then a big-time investor has swooped in and offered him big-time cash, so I can stop thinking about spending more money. I've been going to antique shows for years and this is the first time this has happened. As you would guess I'm really beside myself with glee at having cashed in on the opportunity to expand my collection with such clean cards.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my story.

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Posted By: Bryan

I sure wish something like that would happen to me. There has to be a box full of tobacco cards somewhere in my attic:) Of course they would only be filled with HOFers and and would not be able to distinquish if they were real or not and would be forced to sell them as reprints but you never know they might not be reprints at all:)

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Posted By: nickinvegas

Pete,
That was a great find. I too have insisted on hitting Antique shops and shows for years. I have yet to find anything with the exception of the occasional 1987 Topps Chris Bosio card(or someother crappy card.) Your story has inspired me, plus it's good evidence for my wife.

Regards,
Nick

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Posted By: Gary B.

I'm always going to our local swap meat (aka a flea market) and going to antique and thrift stores in the hopes of making a great baseball card find, but it rarely happens, and when it does, it's never for anything pre-war.

Last week-end at a swap meet I found a woman selling a stack of Topps 1970 cards, and I bought a few midling players for about 20 cents a piece, including a nice Tony Perez, so I was happy, but even that level of find is pretty unusual.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I used to be able to find Hartland statues with some regularity in 80s. Forget whot he named football player was, but picked that up in an antique store for 50 cents. The sticker just had $50 on it and felt it was well worth it. When she rang up 50 cents, about fell over..

Jay

I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in.

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Posted By: Howie

You mentioned that all the cards were the exact same size. It's rather unusual for a group of random cards from that era to be all the exact same size. Are you familiar with T206 cards to know the difference between an original and a modern reprint. A group of modern reprints will all be the same size. Can you post a scan of a few?

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Posted By: Pete Z.

Yeah that's a pinhole in the Marquard border I can live with. The back on the Jennings is truly stunning. They pass the smell test to me.

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Posted By: Julie

.........

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Posted By: Richard Dwyer

I found two of my T206 tobacco boxes at antique shops. Bought my one first for $5! (1911 Old Mill) I also found a Sweet Caporal at a flea market.

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Posted By: Howie

Cool, they look fine. A lot of reprints find their way into the hobby through non-hobby outlets. There's lot's of stories like yours that don't have a happy ending because the cards turn out to be artificially aged modern reprints. You done good, and the cards are nice shape to boot. What did you say the guys phone number was?

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Posted By: John Dickson

Great cards. Knowing what these go for on Ebay, how much did you pay for them? What else did you get? Thanks

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Posted By: Scott M

Pete Z,

Those are very nice looking T-206s... congratulations on your find.

I just returned from visiting my grandmother in the mountains of Western North Carolina this past weekend and rummaged around one of the local flea markets while I was there hoping for a find similar to yours (which are few and far between anymore).

I came up empty on cards but at least found something somewhat related to vintage cards.. A March 1, 1911 copy of the Ladies Home Journal.

Its not much and I wouldn't have even thought about buying it except for the ad that caught my eye towards the back..

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Posted By: runscott

Don't beat a-'round' the bush with your answers...and everyone 'chip' in.

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Posted By: Scott M

Scott F... sounds like you're looking for a "can of worms"?

I can hear the arguments now... "They're just Dixie Lids without the tails"

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Posted By: Ben

Maybe....what kind of product were the G&B's distributed with? Was it not chewing gum?

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Posted By: Scott M

Way to nip that one in the bud!

I don't know about Scott F. but I know I tend to forget about G&B because I have this mental block that says 19th century = tobacco for some reason... or maybe I'm just mental

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Posted By: runscott

While you're on a roll, please go i.d. the picture I posted on the R312 thread. Thanks

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Posted By: runscott

I was looking through those antique jars full of buttons, hoping to repair a few uniforms, when I stumbled on this:

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Posted By: ChuckkieB

Congrats on your find! I've been searching flea markets, garage sales, etc...for years with very little luck so far. My best find was an unopened pack of 1975 topps baseball cards at a garage sale in Stonybrook, NY about 10 years ago. I bought it for 1 dollar. No Brett's or Yount's in the pack though. The best card was a Mike Schmidt. Not bad, but not quite the find of a lifetime either. Oh well, my seach continues.......

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Posted By: Gary B.

because I was thinking of starting a post myself telling people that I was doing the same kind of thing, going to flea markets (aka swap meets), garage sales, thrift stores and antique shops looking for baseball cards and/or old baseball related items with usually very little success. I wanted to ask people if they thought it was a futile activity, where I could be investing my time better elsewhewre since it never seemed to come up with much, but this thread has helped. I guess the answer for me is that I enjoy the quest, even if the results are few and far between, and that's what's important. I still fantasize about a big pre-war find though - you never know!

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Posted By: andy becker

you can't win if you don't play. flea markets, garage sales, and the like are generally a waste. but one find, will keep you going for years.
i had a nice experience with a flea market not long ago. no t cards, but plenty of cheap low grade goudey, diamond stars, and national chicle football. the seller would have a different box every week for a summer. he was never willing to go for "how much for the box"...i think that was beyond him. but he would sell individual cards pretty cheap.
as to garage sales, i look in the local papers and scout out advertised sports cards or memorabilia. i try to make those. 1/10 maybe 1/20 will have something worthwhile. the other 90% will ask how much are these 1990 fleer cards worth??

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Posted By: Jamie

I've had pretty good luck with antique and thrift stores. Plenty of early Nokona gloves and mitts for $5 a pop, some beautiful old nodders from the 60's, and some very cheap skeds and ticket stubs.

My best find was an autographed Air Force baseball ball from 1945 with
Billy Hitchcock's sig a year before he joined the Tigers.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Scott M,

That's a nice Colgan's ad. About 10-15 years ago I was up in North Pole, Alaska rummaging through an antique store and I found a Colgan's tin. I thought it was pretty neat so I bought it. I opened it and found the gum and a Colgan's baseball card in the tin. It doesn't really classify as a "find" but it was fun finding it.

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Posted By: Scott M

That classifies as a "find" in my book!

I thought the Colgans ad was neat since it at least made mention of the ballplayer pictures. It was very modest but at least I could claim to have found something tied to vintage cards in my rummaging this past weekend.

I know Julie and others on this board have Colgans ads which have the Wagner or Cobb card pictured in them which are even nicer!

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Posted By: Gary B.

This of course brings up the obvious question. What would make one more sick, a 95 year old stick of gum or a 95 year old cigarette?

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Posted By: Steve Tuttle

I have one of the Colgan's full-page ads from an old sporting paper that I found at a flea market in Columbia, Md. about ten or fifteen years ago. It's a great image that includes likenesses of Cobb and Wagner. Way back then I sent it to Lew Lipset and he put it in the Old Judge paper. My 15 minutes of fame. Ha.

I also found baseball scraps at the same flea market and many old baseball photos.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Although the thought of sucking an Oppie Dildock makes me kind of sick

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Posted By: Gary B.

"Although the thought of sucking an Oppie Dildock makes me kind of sick"

Let's take Bill's advice and keep it clean on this forum. After all, there are people under 30 who are reading this...

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Posted By: brian p

Searching antique stores for vintage cards is a waste of time (twenty plus years tell me so), but...about seven years ago I came across a group of Zeenuts, about half of the set, plus an additional thirty late 20's Zeenut cards, most in real nice condition (for Zeenuts), and each with either crayon or pencil markings on the back in the same handwriting indicating the player's position. This led me to believe they were part of an original collection, and I gladly forked over the two bucks a card for them.

So the moral of the story is: I don't know.

Brian

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Posted By: brian p

The half of the Zeenut issue that I was referring to in the above riveting tale was the 1925 set.

Brian (everything I write teeters dangerously close to perfection, only sometimes it comes out in a sadly abbreviated form known as gibberish)

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Posted By: Julie