Cards Of Your Favorite Boxer
 

It's been a bit slow on the boxing side of the board. So I thought it would be fun to show off cards or other collectibles of your favorite boxer. I'll start with John L. Sullivan. I started collecting John L. because he was the last heavyweight bare-knuckle champion and the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing.

Hard to go wrong with the great John L, he has so many more cards to collect than most old boxers.


My favorite is Mike Donovan, because he is the key to my favorite set. He was very famous in his own time and there are several books on him from the period (plus his own works) I've tracked down. Because he was a champion before the card era, he has a limited number of cards. He only has:

N226 Red Cross Boxing Positions - pretty tough set, posed with Billy Edwards
N332 S.F. Hess - Tough to find a specific card, just a handful of Donovans out there
T220 White - only fighter with 2 solo poses, each with 3 backs and 1 of the poses has 2 variations of the front on the Mecca backs. Also has the T223's that I'm not confident should be treated as a different set anymore. 10 total cards with all variations
T220 Silver - 1 pose, one of the great SP'd T cards with only 5 copies known + the uncut panel of 8 proofs.
2013 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions High Number SP - his only card since 1911. There are no parallels since the SP'd high numbers only have a base card that year.

I need a Red Cross and a Hess to finish the Donovan master (counting each of the T220 back and front variations) of only 14 cards ever produced (that I am aware of). Those will not come easy since I am looking for a specific card in those issues. Type's aren't that bad to find with a little patience, but a specific one takes some time.

John L. is great to collect for so many reasons. And there are some awesome non-card items as well. Here's a tough-to-find book.....

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Bottom right is John L. I bought this stack at a flea market for almost nothing. Actors and actresses. Black backed. Very cool I think.


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Great score! He just looked like another actor dressed in street clothes.

N150 is a cool set, finding a John L pose in a commons stack is one heck of a bargain find.



And, here's a cool John L. Sullivan, with the wrong pants.

Love the Leaf misprint. Some QC department.

I've got hundreds of Joe Louis items but here are a few favorites:

The tougher small version of his RC:

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1935 Detroit Free Press (M120) Joe Louis premium issued only on July 21, 1935, in a newspaper

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1937 Louis v Braddock mailer was intended to be hung on doorknobs of newsstands to solicit sales of a newspaper special on the fight. Someone saved this circular all these years. Only known example:

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A rare postcard soliciting sales people, it uses a Louis premium supplied by Brown & Bigelow as the bait. Only known example.

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This is a colorized prototype that Ardath briefly experimented with in 1937. I bought it from noted UK collector Bill Priddy and had SGC slab it. Never issued: I guess the purple diaper look wasn't a hit. Only known example.

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1938 Louis v. Schmeling head to head card. Only known example:

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1940s or 1950s Joe Louis Punch decal. Only known example:

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There are two known examples of this signed, die cut folding card. I have to remove that abomination of a GAI label one of these days:

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Exhibit Champions Louis with Holloway Black Cow Sucker back stamp, used as a postcard:

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1938 CHurchman's Louis, signed:

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I only have a lower grade, non stamped version but this Exhibit pose is my favorite of the Louis cards. His Churchmen, Ringside and Ehxibits all being very plentiful is nice. Most of the champion old heavyweights still have career contemporary cards that fit within any collector budget. Louis, in my book, is probably the greatest of the gloved heavyweights before heavyweights became 7 foot tall Eastern Europeans or jacked up muscle men.

“The Little Hebrew” Abe Attell. A native of San Francisco where I was also born and brought up.

“We were Jews living in an Irish neighborhood. You can guess the rest. I used to fight four, five, TEN times a day.”

I always thought this was a great item from Sullivan's career. Not mine, but I kept a scan from an auction many years ago.

There must be some one else with a favorite boxer they collect. Where are all the Ali collectors; or Mike Tyson?

Not much to show for my pick, but here's some more John L since not many other guys from the era I have stuff from have been selected. 2 common cabinets and the tough T229. Even the easier Pet backs like this one are pretty hard. Shame these weren't produced in the quantity of the Obak's. The cabinet in the middle of the photo is one my favored Sullivan cabinets even though it's common and the image isn't special, because the back has a fight record and accounting of his bouts that takes up the entire size of the back.

Luther McCarty won the inaugural World White Heavyweight Championship by stopping Al Palzer in 18 rounds at San Francisco on New Year's Day, 1913. Four months later, one minute and forty-five seconds into his first title defense against Arthur Pelkey in Calgary, McCarty died in the ring. I've been collecting McCarty photos and ephemera for 20 years. As far as I know, the Romeo y Julieta Cuban issue is his only card ...

Along with Luther McCarty, my all-time favorite fighter is Canadian heavyweight contender George Chuvalo, who was ranked in the world's top ten for 12 consecutive years (1964-76) and is the only man to face Ali (twice), Frazier and Foreman. Chuvalo headlined at MSG nine times, and my collection of 40 of his onsite posters includes the bouts with Pat McMurtry, Floyd Patterson (1965's Fight of the Year), Oscar Bonavena, Jerry Quarry, George Foreman and Manuel Ramos. I also have the ulta-rare pennant from his 1966 title fight with Ali at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, onsite programs from 44 of his 93 fights, tickets and press passes from 27, and 10 signed contracts which George gifted to me when we collaborated on his 2013 autobiography: "Chuvalo: A Fighter's Life", published by Harper-Collins ...

Joe Louis PCs:

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Not a card, but certainly a favorite photo of my grandfather:

I have no favorites, this is just a cool thing have, that I got from a local restuarant when I was a kid in the mid 1970's

Since I'm from Arkansas I'm kind of biased towards Sonny Liston. I actually drove the Marine Corps boxing team around for a few days in 1975 while they participated in the US National Championships (I was a young Sgt stationed in Shreveport at the time). LCpl Leon Spinks was on the team and won the Championship match. To celebrate, the coach had me stop at a Liqour store and bought him a 5th of wine. Unfortunately, I don't have a card of his, but I do of Sonny.

Fav Boxer
 

For me it’s Willo the Wisp

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Old man strength is real. My favorite set so I like the card, but research into Donovan made him my favorite of the old timers. The man was either a saint who did everything he could to help as many people as he could, or everyone who wrote about him when he was alive was on his payroll. Every period book and article on him is a stream of laudation and personal testimony about how Donovan helped or shaped other peoples lives for the better is everywhere. So here's 3 of the 5 known fully produced copies.

Patiently waiting for his Hess and Red Cross to turn up for sale, I'm trying to get a copy of each of his cards now.

Also was the progenitor of a sports dynasty. His son Arthur became a HOF boxing referee and his grandson Arthur was a HOF lineman for the Colts.

Art the grandson has a ton of cards of course, but does Arthur the son? I don't have any of him but then I don't really collect his era much. Would be appropriate to at least a couple of him to display alongside