REA Old Judge Proofs

[Archive]

Posted By: Kevin Cummings

I am still stunned after seeing some of the prices of Old Judge material last night in Lew Lipset's auction. Clearly, lots of people have lots more money than I do to throw at these things and there are far more collectors interested in 19th century material than there used to be.

With that in mind, I've also noticed that the Old Judge "proofs" in REA have generated very little bidding interest thus far. One of the REA lots is the exact same Flynn proof that was cut apart to make up the four lots in the American Memorabilia (AM) Auction of a few months ago. There was a rather lengthy and contentious board thread back then, but the debate over "authenticity" (or "originality" or whatever other term you might want to appply to the AM offerings) didn't prevent collectors from plunking down in aggregate over $50,000 for them.

So I'm wondering where the underbidders from those lots (or any of the other nouveau riche collectors) are on the REA proofs. Could AM have a more extensive and influential bidder list than REA? Are bidders waiting in the weeds until it get closer to the closing date so as not to tip their hands? Or is everybody just tapped out and REA happens to be last in the auction timeline and is suffering for it?

Also, Sports Collectors Digest had a feature article about the earlier Flynn proofs. I wonder if there will be a follow-up article for the REA lots.

Any thoughts?