Latest Pickups

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by G1911

I'm sure I'm not the only one that would love to see some of your photos of these guys. The track cards are the 'leftovers' in T218, but I love them. Gorgeous cards and super cheap usually.

I don't know much about track history beyond what I've researched on T218 subjects, but it seems there are many fairly obscure track athletes featured, and many Olympians who were not. I think this probably has to do with Frank G. Fullgraff's (the American Lithographic salesman/project manager with tobacco connects who apparently devised, designed and out together many of the T card sets) social network and the release contracts for their images. Fullgraff was a long time sportsman and member of the New York Athletic Club, so the man who made up the sets and was probably in charge of the releases (judging from T225/T220), knew Sedley and many of the others personally. I have found little information out there on Sedley, he seems one of the most obscure of the subjects.

I like that they originally spelled Gillis correctly on the back but wrong on the front, and then created a variation by making the back wrong too instead of fixing the front.

Kiviat passed away at 99, 4 months after I was born. I've been looking for a signed Kiviat T218 card for a long time, there have been some blatantly fake signed T218's on eBay a couple of times, but some of the sets roster lived long enough for an autograph card to be a significant possibility. Kiviat seems the most likely to be out there somewhere.

Here are some photos from my archives. I picked these as they were already scanned and sized to put on a website:

Probably a very rare Spalding premium of the gold medal winners from the 1906 Intercalated Games. The IOC does not like to include them in the Olympics, but most Olympic historians do. This is mounted on 3/16 inch cardstock with a slight curve to it. I believe there are at least 4 athletes in this photo who are in the T218 set. At one time I had the signatures of every person in this photo, including James Sullivan and Matt Halpin. I purchased a large group of items from the estate of the son of Isidor 'Jack' Niflot. He won a gold medal in wrestling in 1904 and competed in 1906. He collected autographs of all of his teammates on the back of his business card. I purchased them along with photos and other items.
1906-U.S.-team.jpg

Two photos of Platt Adams. His brother Ben was also an Olympian
adams platt - 1.jpg
adams-platt-2.jpg

Two photos of Charles Bacon. The studio photos are my favorites.
bacon charles 4.jpg
bacon-charles-1909.jpg

Ralph Craig - 1912 gold medalist in the 100m. I am not sure if he is in the set or not.
craig-ralph.jpg

Charles Daniels
daniels-c.jpg

Joe Ruddy - won gold medals in swimming and water polo in 1904. Next to him is his son Ray who competed in swimming in 1928 and 1936. Ray died in 1938 at age 27.
ruddy-2.jpg

Mel Sheppard - I believe this is a magic lantern slide.
shepperd-1912.jpg

Ira Davenport - I do not believe he is in the T218 set. I saw a listing for a lot of Pan Handle scrap cards and I believe one of them was him.
davenort-ira-2.jpg