Definitely beyond my expertise.

Here is another of my boxing cards I picked and had graded because I thought it was such great condition. This one I sent to SGC.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...im_Phelps.webp

Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try and get PSA to fix the myriad wrong information in its systems in regard to boxing cards.

For that set, that is great condition.

My kind of condition, a 1/1.5 type card but with the image pretty clean and the registration 99% right. Pretty much all T227 Johnson's are off a smidgeon at the bottom if you look closely, I don't think I've ever seen a perfect one. This is the Miner's Extra back, I have an Honest Long cut in a bit worse shape. The Miners is tougher but doesn't sell much higher. I only need Frank Klaus to complete the boxing Miners Extra subset.

Looks like one I used to own.

Doesn't that describe pretty much every boxing card? ;)

oh SNAP!

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Film%201.gif

I'd consider it a good thing to have had pretty much everything at one point or another. I'm making do with my narrowly focused humble little sets. The last 10% of my want list remaining will take 40+ years...

From the same source, an obscure one. Fitzsimmons is the tougher of the 2 (I think) recurring yellow smear variants. This card is a factory 649, which is a new discovery. The other known examples are factory 30's.

Now at 28/50 for T218 Tolstoi. I was searching eBay past sales to try to understand pricing and saw a Loughery that sold for $100. I clicked on it, and it said, "You won this auction."

I was reading the stats on the back. Almost every fight was a "no decision". He did defeat Unk Russell, which makes me think Russell was not very good, or had a bad day.

I was looking at stats on boxerlist.com for Russell and Laughery. They both beat Mellody. The stats on boxerlist are different than the stats on the T218. Boxerlist does not show lots of no decisions. May be worth it's own thread at some point.

Congrats on another Tolstoi!

My understanding from my readings is that the issue is that some jurisdictions, like New York and Philadelphia, had repressive rules on boxing that essentially banned 'real' fights. Thus, every fight was a No Decision in these places because they were 'exhibitions' and there was no winner allowed to be formally named. 4, 6, 10 and 12 rounds seems to be the common round counts used for these bouts, though a lot of the newspapers seem to make clear that the boxers fought just as hard as in 'fully authorized' fights and they were not like the actual exhibitions put on by retired boxers to demonstrate technique. Boxrec and others try to use Newspaper decisions to catalog wins and losses, but this is a modern project.

If I am incorrect, someone please clarify and correct what I have said. I'm sure others know more fully.

Thanks for explaining the records, that makes sense.

Yeah, pretty spot on.

One of the funniest things I ever saw were those signed T218’s that surfaced a few years ago with inscriptions of fight records that could only have been culled from Boxrec and never existed before internet data entry existed.

Thanks for checking me.

That was a fun saga, the most low effort fakes I have ever seen. The seller was a real piece of work; he responded to my report that his cards were fake with an invective filled rant so bad I'm surprised he didn't get banned by eBay. Still keep my eyes peeled for a T218 signature that might actually be real; never seen one. Abel Kiviat died in 1991 and several of the guys lived into the 70's. A Coulon or something may exist out there somewhere.

Just got these in. I think the Jeffries Ogden's cards are pretty under-rated. Pretty sure they're his 1st Non-cabinet card issues.

The black Ogdens issues are awesome. I'm slowly building the boxing subsets after a former member here got me more into the British tobacco cards. I buy lots of the non-sports subjects when I see them cheap; one could make a wonderful collection covering everything from politics to history to zoology to sports to architecture to the stage just from these issues. Nice pickups

I've yet to find an earlier non-cabinet card.

Yeah, the various Ogdens black border issues and the Guinea Gold stuff is absolutely fascinating...and they are vast in their topics.

I've always liked them because they are a very early photographic tobacco issue, and back when I was buying lots of them 20+ years ago, they were absolutely dirt cheap.

Don't even know what I did with most of them, probably got bored with them and sold most of them off years ago (for dirt cheap again), but a part of me wished I kept them around and hoarded more of them, just out of curiosity.

There's a decent article on the "General Interest Series" on the Pre-War Cards site here:

https://prewarcards.com/2019/11/07/o...ack-and-field/

Thanks Adam.

Yeah, when I boiled down my black bordered Ogdens cards to one of each series or issue, I made sure to keep a Jeffries. Still need a Heroes of the Ring type (I think; gotta check).

Finished T219 with the HLC Black backs now with this one. Need 3 commons to finish Miners Extra and 8 to complete the HLC Greens.

16 down, 34 to go.

Love this card. My local card shop has pretty terrible options but had two of these somehow. Poor condition though.

Looked for this 1960 Master Vending Robinson in decent shape for a long time. I used to own a badly miscut one.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Robinson.jpg

Picked this up.

Looking for MSG Wrestlemania 1 ticket as well, Felt Forum ticket could be interesting, but not interested in CCTV ticket from some high school, sorry.

Let me know what you have!!

Absolutely love this!

Pretty happy to add these to my humble little collection. I started picking up Red Suns about a year ago, and am up to 28 different cards now. I still don't think I will ever complete it due to the Johnson that probably isn't worth to me what it is to someone else, but I will be satisfied with as many as I can put together here. The back designs are great, and that most of the cards are photo repeats of the T218 issue that is my pet set makes it a fun complement. The misspelling of the series name bugs me just a little bit, but it's probably good they didn't fix it and give me another 50 variations to chase.


Some were interesting, and one is a benefit of cracking out. The Jimmy Walsh card does not appear to have the layer of gloss that even beater Red Suns have. Upon close examination under magnification, I can find no trace of it at all, which is a first. Not sure if this card missed the layer during production or was printed on different glossless stock, or it has lost it all to time.

I don't much care about condition, but I do mark in my collection spreadsheets cards I believe to be altered, in case I ever end up with a dupe and then have one for trade. I am not a fan of the graders, but usually find that while they miss tons of alterations, those they mark as A almost always are. I'm confused on these though. The Loughrey and Nelson both have a piece of scotch tape on the back to strengthen the crease, but the Loughrey is oversized and I can find no evidence of trimming on close examination of either card, or recoloring (which I am by no means on expert on). Does SGC consider this scotch tape an alteration? Perhaps it's a me thing and I've just always considered tape a "1" grade, but not altered/authentic.

Finally, there is a big "13" stamp on the back of the Wolgast that looks really, really familiar and I am sure I have seen before.

I don't recall seeing Richard Merkin before, but I like his taste.

If anyone wants to buy the slips at 10% of the card price, DM me :D. More seriously, I messed up my list and now have a duplicate Eddie Walsh, so I'm not cracking him out. If the underbidder happens to be a member and still wants it, slide into my DM's.

Added Langford to Tolstoi's. Langford was the first Tolstoi I bought about 20 years ago. I sold it before I started going for the set. so had to add another.


Nice Red Sun's, I saw those, and was watching Attell, but it went for a decent price. My understanding is that Merkin was a pop-artist who had a large collection that Hake's has been selling for years.

Congrats on another Tolstoi! I bet the Langford 20 years ago was cheaper ;). He used to pop up fairly often, don't seen him much at all anymore.

Thank you for the ID. Apparently this Mr. Merkin was a significant artist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Merkin) and was on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album. I don't remember seeing his vanity label before. I lost Attell, Jeffries and the higher grade ones. Can't imagine building sets like this to much of a condition standard. I want to pick up a single T211 now to go alongside them, though that set is probably outside my price range to go for bulk.

if you want to see some sick Red Suns, go to Heritage and run a T226 search. They liquidated the Hull Collection in 2009 and he had some of the finest examples in the world, true things of beauty.

Finished my E76 set, which is not really an accomplishment and an easy one, but I haven't wanted to overpay for the last card so I've been at 19/20 for like three years until Choyinski showed up. These cards are hideous and ugly and while the pictures clearly resemble the portrayed fighter, they are poor likenesses. I don't know why I collect these, but I do.

Picked up Jim Londos and Henri DeGlane 1940's Selo Photos.

Not much is known about these photo cards, other than they originate from Canada, and were likely sold in wrestling arenas over a decade-long time frame.

Over the years, I have collect dozens of these cards. I also have a "popcorn" wrapper the cards were sold in, and a mini-card photo-type album which may have been sold to hold the cards.

They measure 3.5 x 2.5 inches, the exact same size as today's standard trading cards. (first cards of that measuement?)

1972 Superchapitas 'tinny' of Carlos Monzon:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...s%20Monzon.jpg

A couple more crackouts. Like most of this issue, I have a hard time seeing the slab grade as being accurate once they are free for proper examination. The lower left corners are too rough for VG-Ex, the bottom gouge in Gans, the upper left corner crease in Jackson. PSA is very generous on these. Still need a true EX copy at some point.

31/50 of the Red Sun series now. The Condon was like $3.25 shipped, I have a few of this issue but haven't made any effort to get them. Nice looking cards.

The Saginaw Kid

A cheap postcard to fill the void. Jeffries was like $12 here.

A box topper for Panini Golden Age, pretty nice Exhibit style bonus.

Collectors don't seem to care about him in the slightest, unless it's a fight involving a more popular boxer, but I think Gene Tunney is crazy under-rated by both collectors and historians.

Yeah, I agree. Tunney was probably the best lt. heavyweight-heavyweight of the 1920s. Greb mauled him early on, but he came back and beat Greb repeatedly, and never lost again, including twice against JD. He just wasn't a beloved character; I think because he more or less left the sport and the public eye early while still champ when he married Polly Lauder and went to CT to breed senators. Dempsey arguably had the lesser record. His title defenses after Willard were pretty much gimmes: a smaller guy with a fatal kidney disease (Miske), two small guys (Carpentier, Gibbons), a guy he'd already beat handily (Brennan), and a guy with a puncher's chance (Firpo). But he beat Firpo, then went out on his shield, twice, and became the every-man hero in the process, then kept himself relentlessly in the public eye in NY with his restaurant.

Totally agree yet, I am a big Tunney fan. The folks at the time and maybe still today, appreciate the aggressive big hitter, Jack Dempsey . After the excitement of a Dempsey championship the folks didn't have the same enthusiasm for the thoughtful, defensive expert, Tunney.

What a great life he led! He enlisted in the Marines during WWI and left as a decorated officer. Retired from boxing with all his faculties and had very successful second career.

I don't think the public ever really had a chance to develop enthusiasm for Tunney. He left almost as soon as he took the title and retired with only 1 defense after Dempsey. His resume is pretty weak. I agree Dempsey's resume is weak too, he never had much interest in seriously defending his title, but what does Tunney have in his W column outside of Jack? Avenging his loss against Greb, who wasn't really even a light heavy? Carpentier that is also on Dempsey's? There's not much of note on it. Tunney is an interesting guy, Jack Cavanaugh's biography is really good but a little hagiographic. Kind of a shame he's mostly just a footnote today.

The Sport Kings is my favorite Tunney card.

Just in.

My favorite Tunney:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20exhibit.jpg

The Little Hebrew, got for less than I thought it would go for. Down to 2 cards to go to complete the E77's, pugilist Langford and wrestler Gotch.

I love this card, I have been acquiring them slowly for some time and intend on acquiring more as opportunity presents itself. What was the price of these at the time you purchased?

edit to note, "slowly for some time" was six months ago when I learned of it's existence ;)

the brutality of it though....
 

No card will ever capture this much violence, ever.

Since we were talking about Tunney, I thought some my like to read the back of his Goudey Sport Kings card.

New arrival for my T220 set!

Love to see T220’s for any reason. Good luck on your set chase

Thanks! I'm casually working on this set as inexpensive examples come my way. I'm really not even a boxing fan per se, but the artwork is stellar.

That's how I started. I was gifted a lot of random T cards and I liked a lot of the history themed cards in it. There were 7 T220 silvers in it, and I thought they were kind of funky at first. Who wants to collect cards of scantily clad dudes? And now I'm a boxing guy. I collect T42's and know no ornithology. The T card art is just so good, it doesn't matter what the subject is, I've come to collect pretty much all of them.

That's the problem: you see examples of the artwork and you just get hooked on all of the issues.

Similar thing happened to me. Bought a box of T cards from a neighbor. T218, 219, 220 and a bunch of other random T cards.

They knew what they were doing!

Maybe there's nicotine on the cards?

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...9%20Hawaii.jpghttps://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ohnson%201.jpg

Reminds me of Robin Williams' old line: I give the pigeons my methadone so they come back.

Here's a pretty T card and new pickup, the Fighting Dentist puts me at 132/250 in the T225-1 set.

133/250

Wolgast on the right is new. A red isn't complete without an orange.

This is almost certainly not an actual printing variation but just damage from exposure, like almost all orange-instead-of-red T and E cards. Still looks different enough to slot it in my set.

Upgraded my T9 Brown.

That's an interesting assertion, Greg. Please expand on it.

I'll make a thread so as not to divert this one too far.

4 more down. Progress should start slowing down soon...

4 poster cuts on the left, and some more cards for my master build on the right. Lewis turned out to be an upgrade. 142/250 cards down. T225-1's are not super tough for any of the backs I think, but that there are 10 of them for each subject means that it will take many years for all of the cards to even surface to market.

Was happy to win this 2012 Panini Golden Age. The image short prints were only 2 per case and are hard to find now, doesn't crop up often. The card on right is the SP image variant, the card on left the base. I like picking up the modern renditions of the 19th and early 20th century boxers that appear in the N/T/E sets.

Last pickup of the year unless one of you guys wants to cut down my want list.

T218 Master Set card #626 out of 632 possible (maybe 631, I might be chasing one phantom) now in hand. Was very happy to see this one pop up.

Guess I lied, snuck one good one in before the clock strikes 12. Ketchell, actually Attell, completes my 22 card E75 set. The 2 error cards are pretty tough, was happy to see one come to market.

Broke my c. 1910 focus for this one. I don't know what version it is, there are apparently red mojo, red wave, red refractor, red etc. versions that I can't keep up with and tell the difference between in a picture. 1990 Pro Set Football is one of my favorite sets of all time (great photography, I like the design, so many variations, and so so cheap) and Fury is probably a true great. One of the problems with modern boxing is that most of the cards are rare and pretty ugly or low effort. There are so few well made ones to pick from. I tend to pick up the pugilists from Goodwin, Ginter, and random one-offs like this if they are cheap.

The back gives his record as 30-0-1 but then says that he beat Wilder 3 times. I'm not sure if this is an uncorrected error, or they are passive aggressively acknowledging the obvious instead of a judge's BS ;)

I'm sure I'm not the only one making pick ups. Show 'em folks!

2 French Mags from 1910 featuring Sam Langford and Tom Sharkey on the covers.

Also: a 1955 Swedish non-sports related comic book featuring a great 3 card panel on the back, with Rocky Marciano book-ended by John L. and Corbett.

Nice shorts

Are the autographs live or printed?

Printed!

I have two 1/1's, the blue and gold variants I think the kids call 'cracked ice', so I looked for others in the rainbow. An Orange Refractor that is not numbered but I think difficult, and a different kind of red refractor numbered to 10. I'm not quite clear how many versions I would need for a rainbow, but if they're dirt cheap I'm picking them up when I see them. Not much to collect in modern boxing. The refractors show up better in photographs in low light

Coupla recent arrivals:
- Gunboat Smith vs Georges Carpentier for the World White Heavyweight Championship, July 16, 1914 in London
- Duane Bobick vs Kallie Knoetze for the World White Heavyweight Championship, January 28, 1978 in Johannesburg, South Africa

Always looking for anything on Luther McCarty, Arthur Pelkey and the White Hope era.

Latest Pickups
 

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...46247713a7.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...98dc21aa65.jpg

Love the note on the back. Match took place 9/20/1975 in Philly.


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...fcd4cc0865.jpg
Boyd Pierce mailaway card. Tough to find.

Crossed off another Ogdens, this one from the B series. Love these little cards, collecting the boxers especially but the host of different subject matters makes the Black Ogden's sets a ton of fun to pick up in random lots when they appear.

Mace is a common card, but he was a significant heavyweight and middleweight champion, one of the early scientists of the ring who beat much larger men routinely. He and Mike Donovan toured together after retirement and put on shows intermittently for a number of years promoting scientific boxing. He fought exhibitions at his boxing school in Cape Town and elsewhere into his late 70's.