Hopkins Brothers J.L Wilkerson Postcard --Price Explosion??

[Jason19th]

Sorry I cannot post a scan but if you look at the old cardboard rookie card database for Wilkerson (owner of the KC Monarchs) you will see which card I am talking about

For years this card has been available for $40-50 on ebay and I have always questioned the certainty of the Wilkerson id but in the last couple of months one has sold in Goodwin for 700 and just sold on ebay for 512.

Are these blips or should I be selling


Any thoughts

[h2oya311]

Given that this is his only known career contemporary card, every HOF collector needs one. I have picked up two in the past year for <$100 on eBay, but he wasn't identified in either listing. I plan on selling one and can only hope I get the prices you quoted!!!

Perhaps the SGC slab helped in the Goodwin sale!!

[bcbgcbrcb]

Significant, vintage Negro League Baseball memorabilia is on the upswing all the way around, thanks in no small part to the recent auctioning of the Richard Merkin collection through Hake's over the past three years. I don't think you'll see those postcards going for under $100 on e-bay (or anywhere else) any more unless the seller butchers the listing (misspellings/wrong category/etc). That being said, Goodwin ALWAYS gets very high prices and the e-bay seller of this example of the postcard (along with many others) is probably about the equivalent of Henry Yee selling baseball photos on e-bay, minus the consignment part of it. Dan Yaw is very highly regarded in the vintage baseball postcard market.

[slidekellyslide]

I knew I should have stocked up on that card before making my discovery known.

They are not rare, and it wasn't that long ago (maybe 3 or 4 months back) that I saw one sell for less than $50 on ebay.

[slidekellyslide]

Here is one that sold for only $7.00 just a few weeks ago...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hopkins-Bros...item41732c59d3

and another one for $70

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1909-Hopkins...item5d3def7776

I don't see the one that Jason referenced above for $512. Anyway this postcard is really easy to find...a little patience can save you a whole lot of money if you need this for your collection.

[Jaybird]

Not to mention the fact that it's not even Wilkinson.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Please see below link to SABR article on J. L. Wilkinson. The main point that seals the deal for Dan B. in my eyes is the mention that Wilkinson kept three male players on an otherwise all-female team and if you look at the postcard, there are three male players pictured. Too much of a coincidence for me. As far as facial resemblance, I won't comment on that one way or the other as it is not a real photo postcard but a commercially printed one and the image is not clear enough to make a determination. I also don't know if we have another image of Wilkinson dating to the 1908-10 time period that we could compare it to.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/db4ae51d

[bcbgcbrcb]

Just curious if anyone read my post (#10)..........

[slidekellyslide]

I read it Phil. I just think the info is all there...and I do think there is resemblance...the facial shape is the same, can't tell anything about the nose and ears, but if you look you can see that the circular inner part of the ear matches on the right ear in Mark's photo of him with the circular inner part of the ear on the left ear in the postcard...the amount of space from nose to lip is the same. There doesn't seem to be many photos of Wilkinson out there so you can't find anything that has the same angle which you need to do a good facial recognition comparison.

Also no one has come up with any links to anything about anyone else ever managing the Hopkins lady team other than Wilkinson.

[bmarlowe1]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Just curious if anyone read my post (#10)..........

I very much did read it. That's exacly why I posted contemporary images of him. Nothing you said accounts for the facial feature differences I pointed out, differences that are not apparent in any other verified image of Wilkinson. Face angle has no relevance here to the mouth comparison, and little for the nose comparison.

In the center image above, Wilkinson's right ear (viewer's left) is seen to have a detached earlobe. For the face in question, which is turned somewhat to the opposite direction, his ear appears to have an attached earlobe - not conclusive given the quality of the image, but not a good sign. While head angle can affect this to some degree, the angle of his ear with respect to his head doesn't appear to match Wilkinson (in young and old man photos). There are just too many little things wrong that add up to it not being him.

What I am saying about the mouth is clarified below: