My Fascination with Great Rarities

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Posted By: barrysloate

There are certain hobby rarities that hold a particular curiosity for me. Two that fall under this category are Kalamazoo Bats Giants players and Tango Brand Eggs.

What these two disparate issues have in common is that nearly the entire population derives from a single source. Nearly all of the known N690 Giants originated from the Ron Oser find in the 1980's, and the entire population of Tangos came from one family.

What fascinates me is how all or virtually all of one issue could end up in one place. The Oregon find of Old Judges, for example, was a fantastic hoard of some 1400 cards, but tens of thousands of N172 were already known.

So how did all of a single issue end up in one place? I know we can't answer for sure, but I do find it intriguing.

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Posted By: Brian C.

Barry, another example of your point in what I collect is the 1913 Cleveland Schedule postcard series. All the ones I've seen are addressed to someone at Sherwin Williams. Most unusual. (By the way, if anyone has any for sale, please contact me!)

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Posted By: David Smith

Barry, what about the 1928 Star Player Candy cards?

How many of those are known?? I found my 16 all at once (the seller's Father got them when he was a child) and there weren't any doubles. Just wait for the story in the upcoming Old Cardboard magazine. Lyman gave me a small preview when I talked to him about my Buddy Myer card and there was another find that was larger than mine.

I don't know how many SPC cards in total are known to exist (100? 200?) but with the two finds combined, they would constitute a majority, I would guess.


David

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Posted By: leon

I bought and sold a small group of about 11 SPC baseball cards at the last National. There were 3-4 HOF'ers in the lot.....They were sold to a board member that keeps sort of a low profile...My guess is there might be 100-200 known but at least that many not known about, to most internet savy collectors....that's just a swag guess though.......regards

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Posted By: Jerry

Althought all known were not found in one place, the find of S81 Mathewson's has made it quite abit more common than the other players in the set.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I recognize my two examples were just that, and not the only issues where an entire population came form one source. But getting back to the Tango Eggs, what set of circumstances led to all of them descending from one family, and why is it that nobody else had even a single example? I have no explanation for it. What if somewhere along the way that family threw out their hoard? Then the set would never have been known.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I always wondered about the Tango Egg cards and thought it strange how they popped up all at once. Presumably the cardboard dates properly etc. so it's a matter of how the hoard survived. I found Mr Mint's ad from 1992 in SCD in my vertical files and it mentions quantities of 5-12 cards each of 13 different players. Maybe it was a box of salesman's samples? Lew Lipset confirmed these quantities for the most part in TOJ #44 and notes Sotheby's might have bought many of them. My trail goes cold after that. Maybe David Kohler knows?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I'm fascinated with E121 Herpolsheimers for much the same reason, Barry.

I also tend to like card issues that people don't know a whole lot about. The later-period Goudey mainstream and premium issues, W502s, and Henry Johnson Confectioners cards are all big parts of my collection because of the mysteries surrounding them.

-Al

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

Has anyone ever scene documentation that Tango Eggs even exists? Perhaps the Tango Eggs cards were nothing more than a salesman's sample of how one could advertise your company's product with these baseball player's images on the front. Another possible explanation on how all the cards could be found from as single source might be that the cards were created, and Tango Eggs never paid for the final product, so the printer simply kept the cards.

(P.S. I see David also had the idea about salesman samples as well.)

Patrick

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Barry, I'm trying to remember the full Tango story. Brian Daniels is one of the experts on this issue. Doug Allen also. But as I recall the hoard was found in Louisiana, where the Tango Egg company was based. There have been a very few cards show up which were not part of the hoard, and they were all in "circulated" condition - vg-ish or worse. The cards from the hoard were mostly pristine uncirculated cards. Maybe the family that owed the company thought that the cards might be a good promotional idea but the company was already in such dire straits that they went out of business before most of the cards were distributed. Then a family member kept the remaining cards. Or, possibly Tango Eggs never existed and the cards we see are some kind of salesmen samples produced to show a prospective customer, using a company fictitious name. Or the Tango folks never paid the printer so the printing company kept the cards. I remember one of our NET 54 colleagues mentioning both of these possibilities in previous posts. But we will probably never know why there are so many Beschers and Jennings and so few of some of the others. 1-2 Cobbs and Wagners, 4 Bresnahans, etc. out of 700+ total cards. I think that all of the poses are also found in other candy and bread issues, although why Weaver and others are misidentified remains a mystery.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Nevermind....Bruce posted the story while I was typing.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Bruce- several of your theories are good, and to some extent speculation. One thing I will say is the cards are well made- every bit the same quality as standard E-cards, with likenesses that exactly duplicate other sets of the day. The appearance was awfully good, and if they were samples not meant for circulation they certainly didn't scrimp on the printing costs.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

I think I remember hearing that most of the SPC cards have been found in Michigan. I bought a group of 5-6 a few years ago from Superior in Michigan. I realize that just because the auction house was in Michigan doesn't mean the consigner found the cards in Michigan but it is interesting. Unlike the Tangos, the SPC cards are blank backed, so we have even less to go on.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I just got an interesting phone call and email from Rob Lifson. Rob has in his upcoming auction 16 of the 18 known Tango Eggs players, which is in fact the #1 set on the PSA registry. It also comes with letters from the family who owned the original cards. Apparently, over time there have been errors made regarding which cards actually exist, and Rob feels there are related errors in the checklist, so much so that he is offering a reward of $100,000 to anybody who can come up with the following: examples of Wagner and Tinker, and the other two known examples of Morgan and Felsch. Now, before anyone goes to collect the reward, I'm not sure if you have to produce all the examples or just one. But he is stating that none of these actually exist. He emailed the catalog description and it is quite compelling.

Edited to add the two that are missing from his group are Cobb and Schaefer.

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Posted By: RobertEdwardAuctions

I just thought I should clarify that while Barry is correct that REA is offering a reward for these cards to be verified, we do not state that these cards do not exist. We do state that it is possible that they do exist.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Rob- my apologies, I was writing from memory without the text in front of me. I don't want you to have to pay out that reward due to my own error of transcription.

However, if it does turn out that somebody claims the reward as a result of my misstatement, when I come out to view the lots in April, lunch is on me!

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

Two other super-rare issues where the majority of the known cards were owned by one individual
or one family are

Plows Candy (E 300)
Just So Chewing Tobacco

We recall that there were less than a dozen known samples of the Plows Candy until Bill Mastro purchased
a large lot from a major find back around 1979. We obtained six cards at that time. Of course, this
was long before "grading." but as we recall a near complete collection of the different players
went to Joh Branca.

Just So's are and always will be amongst the rarest type cards in the hobby.

Whilst we were fortunate to purchase our first example in 1979 from Rob Lifson, there were very
few cards known. There was a collector from Cleveland, (first name Al) who always talked about
a large group. In any case, the Board's own Barry Sloate had an auction, around 1982 or 1983
which (Barry please state the correct total) contained 8 or 9 different examples.

Whilst we were an active bidder, all but one of the lots was secured by a leading California collector.

That Sloate auction contained amongst others several examples of cards which were then. and to this day
remain the only ones known.

Just So No One Forgets.

Best,


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: barrysloate

For the record, it was 1998 and I had six examples. And the winner of five of them was from Florida, although that is immaterial.

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Posted By: Dylan

Likely that cards from only one group were produced and never distributed, so it makes me wonder what other sets were produced and never distributed and trashed that we'll never know about.

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Posted By: David Smith

So, the sets most talked about so far; Tango Eggs (Louisiana), Star Player Candy (Upper Miswest) and Just So (Cleveland) are Regional issues at best and possibly just test issues.

What about the Kalamazoo Bats NY cards? Would they also be considered a Regional issue (New York area) since the tobacco company was located in Philadelphia and featured mostly Philly players?

Also, why were there a pad of S81 Christy Mathewsons found? How many were in the pad? Was Mathewson originally going to be the only player featured in the promo and then someone changed their minds? Were more Mathewsons printed because he was the most popular and then the promotion ended and they were stuck with the pad? The last idea doesn't seem logical because Cobb and Johnson were also in the set.

As far as cards or sets created and then destroyed before ever being issued, that is a good question. T231 Fans Cigarettes might fall in that category. Leon? Leon??


David

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Posted By: barrysloate

I would guess the N690 Giants were distributed in New York, and I agree Leon's T231 is one of the strangest cards in the hobby. It is so rare that I don't know what to make of it (other than it is very valuable).

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Posted By: Phil Garry

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Posted By: Joe D.

I think it is on-topic to ask the question here as well....

e105 Mello Mints.

why are there so many of certain players... and then just one example of others?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Those are the mysteries we don't understand. Why did the Tango Egg find have one Cobb and a hundred Beschers?

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Posted By: Wesley

Has anyone here seen the Tango Egg Cobb or a photo of that card?

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Posted By: peter ullman

i'd gues a tango egg cobb would have the leaning on bat pose? I believe BCD has 1 or 2 of them?

pete in mn

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Posted By: barrysloate

He might have one, but he doesn't have two -it's unique.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

I imagine Brian Daniels will be joining this discussion soon. I think I remember him saying that there are two different Tango Cobbs.

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Posted By: Wesley

Has anyone here seen the Tango Cobb card? I am just curious whether it is the leaning on bat pose of the side E90-1 pose or some other pose.

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Posted By: peter ullman

aaaah...i erred...i might have remembered 2 poses...if that's true!

pete in mn

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Posted By: boxingcardman

A lot of card issues that were promos were issued in waves so that customers would come back. Others were event-driven; the card advertised or was given out at a special event. Perhaps some cards were issued as part of promotions like that and the remaining cards were leftovers, which creates a surplus of certain cards now. Or perhaps there was a redemption or prize associated with the issue and certain cards were shorted to prevent the prize from being won.

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

It is NOT Brian Daniels like he has stated and led others to believe. I guess that is why he NEVER responded to this thread - as he is really like the rest of us - has NO idea as to the exact numbers of each player in the find. Goes back to the old adage - "don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see".

I was going to insert a copy of the checks. However, this sight does not accept bmp images. To view the checks from the original purchaser of the Tango Egg cards, simply go to the REA auction and look at the last image of lot 358.

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

Tango Eggs...is that anything like the Tango. That's what we need some dancing music.

Peter

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Posted By: barrysloate

Peter- you know what they say:

It takes two to buy Tango Eggs!

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Posted By: Judson Hamlin

A Cobb in hand is worth 100 in Bescher?

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Posted By: Dylan

So all this time BCD was lying about being the original purchaser of the Tango eggs find... pretty low

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Posted By: Mark

On the one occassion I met BCD in person, he told me and Bill Cornell in great detail about buying the Tango Eggs horde in New Orleans.

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

I don't know BCD at all and not trying to defend him, but I did notice that the letter dicusses finding the cards in 1993, and then selling the majority to a major dealer (I assume Rosen) and then Doug Allen acted as agent for selling the rest. In fact, the letter is dated 1995. Isn't it possible that BCD purchased some cards sometime between 1993 and 1995, or even after Allen started acting as agent? Maybe I'm wrong, but it appears from the checks that the purchaser only bought the 16 now up for auction. The other thing I find interesting, too, is that the letter is written and dated January of 1995, yet the checks for the 16 cards are dated May of 1995. I wonder who actually requested the letter be written? Was it Allen, or was it a different purchaser, and then a copy was given with each subsequent sale of the cards?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

They range from being in the UFC to owning a Drum Cobb and everything in between.

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Posted By: Steve M.

UFC?

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Posted By: Brad

croftscocoa,

If you had a nickle for every lie you've ever read on Net 54, you'd have $10 million!

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

There have been several lies written on here over the years by various parties! I would love to have that $10 Million to bid in REA and Mastro!

Yep - BCD use to threaten people and say he was in the UFC to make his threats sound more realistic. You can ask several members about this - especially Tony Andrea who posted some of BCD's threatening e-mails on my forum.