what's your favorite all-time "find"

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

We've all read about the recent finds, but we all have our own stories of finds. What was your best?

Mine was a huge (2' x 3') shipping box filled with baseball and football cards of the 1950s' and 1960s'. Back in the late 70's family friends had three college aged sons. When my parents and I visited them and they found out I was a collector, they offered to let me go through the box and take what I wanted. I spent the entire day plowing through it and came away with a 6" stack of HOFers: Mantle, Mays, Williams, etc. At the end of the day when we were leaving, they asked me why I didn't want the rest. Of course I did and I said so. When I got home I dumped the box on my floor and had the best sorting party of my life.

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Posted By: Jeff Obermeyer

Mine is a non-baseball related find - it's hockey.

When I started up my Seattle hockey website (http://www.seattlehockey.net) it caught the attention of one of the account managers for our local hockey team, the Seattle Thunderbirds. He came up to me one day to let me know that he gave my name to another season ticket holder who said he had some old programs and such.

I got a hold of the guy and we arranged to meet at lunch so he could show me what he had. There were about 20-25 programs from the mid 1950's to early 1960's, which was very cool, but the capper was the long lost 1944-45 Pacific Coast Hockey League championship trophy presented to the Seattle Ironmen.

Tunrs out his family purchased it at a garage sale in the early 1970's, and the thing had been holding up the ironing board in the laundry room for some time. The skater was broken off the top, but after 2-3 hours of cleaning and soldering it looks great!

The best part was the price... I paid about $250 for the whole collection... which is what I would have been willing to pay for the programs alone.

As for baseball, my father and I found a 1955 World Series program signed by every member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, including all of the front office staff. It's a beauty!

Jeff Obermeyer

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Posted By: runscott

when I was about 13 a guy that was a lot younger than me wanted to trade comics. I reluctantly agreed and he had the 3rd Iron Man (Tales of Suspense #42), and several other early '60s Marvel Comics. I actually felt guilty after picking them up for about 25 cents each. The 2nd best was when I found 5 coverless copies of Tales To Astonish #27 (1st Ant man/Giant man) at a junk store for 5 cents each.

Baseball-related would be when a school teacher who lived next door cleaned out some lockers at the end of the year and gave me a '58 and '59 Mantle for free. That's always a good thing...

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Posted By: Jaime Leiderman

Back in 1989, run a small classified add on a regional Venezuelan newspaper asking for any kind of baseball material. (I was looking for Topps Venezuelan sets).

A guy called and said he had a box full of cards from the 50's and 60's... of course my heart stopped!

Went to this old house near the downtown and the guy was waiting for me with a huge closed box...

They guy opened the box and almost 600 topps & Bowman cards from '51 - '67 ranging from F to Ex+ were inside...

After a little "fight" over the price, gave the man $50 and "RAN AWAY" with the box, of course, on the front seat of my car.

Well, to make things short...

a '51 Bowman Mantle (VG), Mays (Ex), almost every Mantle and Mays topps in VG-EX+ (No 1952T...)

Sold all the good cards after 2 years and only kept a pretty 1956T Aparicio Rookie and still have the box in my Caracas apartment garage (It's always nice to see that old box and remember how lucky I was that day)

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Posted By: Brian Weisner

I've had alot of great finds, but by far my best was the 148 T206's at the Charlotte Metrolina Antique show. I purchased 60 ex-mt to mint t206's including 20 hofers at 50% less than book . I bought 2 Bresnahan with bats for 10.00 a piece, both are now slabbed at sgc 86's. I was lucky enough to get a red background Cobb for 128.00 which is now in a psa 6 holder. The rest of the cards including Hofers are in psa 6-8 holders. I only wish I would have had another 500.00 to buy the remaining cards. Finding pristine cards from 1909 is a feeling you can't explain. be well brian

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Posted By: John

When my dad was doing work for an old lady she found out i liked baseball,i think i was about 12 when this happened,she went up in the attic and got me a bat that her relative used in a movie.turned out it was an original bat from the movie the babe ruth story,she was william bendix's relative(neice i think).bat is in great condition,still have it displayed in my hallway.....my other finds in houses my dad did work in werent so impressive,81 topps bob watson and a 54 bowman dick kokos,although one house he bought to fix up had a huge collection of stamps,mostly foreign,mostly from the 30-50's but i know nothing about stamps so they might be nothing

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

always see me coming! I'd have to say the 1882 Providence Grays Harper's Woodcut with Wrights, Radbourn and Ward which i won on e-bay for $14.95 from an art gallery that had stuff going way back to the 1700s. And a couple of years ago, i think at Purdey's Pleasanton show (now defunct), I got a 1947 Jackie Robinson Bond Bread (that's from the set of 13 Robinsons, not the set of lots of major stars) for $100, in ex-mint. Some dealers set up without knowing what they have on their tables!

I was sent a big box of '68 and '69 Topps, free, but that's part of a very sad story, so I'm not counting it.

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Posted By: HalleyGator

was finding this web site when it was the old Full Count chat board.

Otherwise, I would still be clueless about 19th century cards!!

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

Up until tonight, my best Ebay find was a Paul Thompson photo of Connie Mack & Ira Thomas, which is autographed by Ira Thomas. A similar photo was taken by Charles Conlon for the 1911 World Series, so I assume this was also taken at the same World Series game. As I mentioned this had been my "greatest" find until this evening.

Earlier tonight, however, I won a Spaulding Baseball Charm/Medallion for under $35.00, which I had originally seen in the October 6th issue of SCD back in 1995. When I called to purchase this item back in 1995, the gentleman in Minnesota told me that he had already sold the item, which had been priced at $95.00.

I was very dissapointed since the charm was inscribed ........."MT CHAMPIONS 1916 ST. PAUL CITY R. MCMENEMY." Growing up my dad had mentioned that a branch of the family had moved to the Midwest, and the other branch had stayed in Massachusetts! P. McMenemy

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Posted By: runscott

I assume you picked up the same one with your surname inscribed.

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Posted By: TBob

3 other collectors and I purchased about a box full of around 750 T213s, mostly T213-2s but many T213-3s from an elderly gentleman from Louisiana in 1982. All have made their way in to the hobby and I regret selling so many of my cards including a near complete set of T213-3s to Bill Mastro. Dumb, dumb...
The horde contained aabout 35 Ty Cobbs, 25 red protraits and 10 bat off shoulders.

Who would have thunk that a near set of 65 of the 70 T213-3s could end up being so valuable? GRRRRRRR
This was my 2nd biggest hobby blunder, my worst being selling a near mint 1959 Topps set in 1982 for $300 so I could buy a Johnny Ray Pirates rookie jersey. (He played for our local college and my alma mater). Lots of nice sentimental value in the jersey but Lord anyone seen what a 59 NM set is selling for these days????

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Posted By: jeff

also not cards:

a dealer friend of mine was sick of carrying around books and the like to every show he did, and he had just bought a new collection from the stat guy for Spokane baseball radio.

So the collection was sold to my dad and I for, I think, $250 or $300.

The collection was basically a complete run of Spalding guides from 1908-1980. Lots of other stuff, too, and still (10 years later) when I go through some of those books, I find newspaper clippings (obits, updates, and so on) from 20-50 years ago.

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Posted By: David

My greatest find was when I found out that I was related to the future NFL Hall of Fame (please, no debate, I don't want my feelings hurt) coach Don Coryell (My mom's maiden name is Coryell). From then on I added a 15% premium to everything I sell because it comes from the Don Coryell Estate.

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Posted By: W.M.

Nothing vintage,but a few years ago I did get lucky by finding two shoe boxes full of 1967-1972 baseball
cards. Many hall of famers and stars from that era. I bought both boxes for $100.00.

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Posted By: Brian C Daniels

Best find in my life..........the wife!
"Found" her when she was only 11 and I was 17. Married her 10 years later. She has paid for lots of nice cards for me! What else could yah want?

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Posted By: runscott

personally, I would want her to be maybe... SIXTEEN!!! But, hey, that's just me. I like to listen to Jerry Lewis music and I think we was into eleven as well. He did that song "I wish I was eighteen again" - maybe it was because he felt less guilty about the age difference when he was eighteen.

seriously, congratulations on a successful marriage. So far I've had two successful ones (both over)

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Posted By: John

i would like a 16 year old too scott but up in nj thats not legal. maybe ill move to georgia but i have no relatives down there(theres a hidden joke in there somewhere)

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Posted By: Brian C Daniels

I want the "friggin" CARD COLLECTION I had when I was 16******



Friggin,is a registered trade mark of the T-Bob vocabulary

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Posted By: runscott