7 1887 Old Judge N-173 Cards to be sold

[Saco River Auction]

On August 29th 2012@5PM Saco River Auction will be selling 7 Old Judge N-173 cabinet cards 1 at a time starting with lot #22. These were found in a trunk in Kennebunk Maine and are all Boston players. These cards were examined and determined to be in such good condition that we would have them graded. SGC will grade the cards and the grades will be listed on our auction sites. The following cards are to be sold on the 29th and I will update this thread with grades when they come back.

N-173 King Kelly in Street Clothes
N-173 John Clarkson
N-173 Dan Brothers
N-173 CM Smith
N-173 Jack Quinn
N-173 Billy Nash
N-173 Chase Bennett

Please call 207-602-1504 or go to www.sacoriverauction.com

[Saco River Auction]

These cards are being graded by SGC and will be back Monday. The grader called to tell me that the King Kelly Card is one of 4 known examples of the card, N-173 in street clothes!!! Very Exciting. I will update this post with the grades when I have them in my hand.

[Saco River Auction]

Check out our profile and view the album with photos of all the cards.

[Saco River Auction]

The Cards came back from SGC Today and here are the grades.

King Kelly = 55 or 4.5 VG/EX
Joe Quinn= 55 or 4.5 VG/EX
Charlie Bennett= 60 or 5 EX
John Clarkson= 60 or 5 EX
Pop Smith+ 60 or 5 EX
Dan Brouthers= 40 or VG 3
Billy Nash=70 Ex+ 5.5

[Saco River Auction]

I would like to extend a special thank you from Saco River Auction to our sports card expert consultant Toby Peterson for assisting us in identifying the cabinet cards, validating their authenticity, advising us on how to proceed and setting us up with one of the best grading companies around. The level of expertise exhibited by Toby was astounding to our staff as he knows baseball cards flat out. He is asset to Saco River Auction and an asset to everyone in the card collecting community. If any auction hall has not used his services you are missing the boat!!! Thank You Toby and I owe you big, brother!

Troy Thibodeau
Manager/Auctioneer
Saco River Auction Company

[chaddurbin]

nice find!

what kind of service does "tobie peterson" provide? i might need his service and expertise.

[barrysloate]

Toby is a good man (hi Toby!) and those cabinets are fantastic. The Kelly is of course the highlight and should sell for quite a bit.

[Saco River Auction]

Just a reminder that we are still signing up bidders to be live on the phone during the sale. The sale is a week from tommorro on August 29th 2012 at 5PM and the phone bids are coming in strong. We only have so many lines, so if you want to be part of this sale please reserve your phone bid associate now by calling 207-602-1504 ask for Troy.

[kcohen]

How do you do it, Fish? You're the man!

[Saco River Auction]

Old Judge Cabinet Cards are a fantastic Investment
The Old Judge Cabinet Cards or N-173’s are some of the rarest 19th Century Cards. This makes them extremely sought after by collectors and examples of the cards are bringing tens of thousands of dollars in both auctions and private sales. Population reports on known examples of each cards are small (usually less than 10 of each type) with very rare examples numbering less than 5 of each player. These cards are rare due to the simple fact that in order to obtain these cards, a cigarette purchaser needed compile 35 proofs of purchase or coupons from cigarette packs, then mail them in and at that point they would receive a single cabinet card or N-173. These cards were produced by Goodwin and Company New York and were actual sepia type photos on a plain backing. One of the rarest of the group is the N-173 Michael “King” Kelly in plain clothes.
In 1888 Goodwin And Company produced two cards depicting King Kelly. The 1st and most common was the “45 degree batting pose”. This card showed King Kelly in uniform with his body bladed 45 degrees towards the camera. The second pose was the King Kelly “portrait” which shows a close up Sepia photo of King Kelly in street clothes. This is the rarest of them all. Vintage Price Guide gives a population on this card as 3 Known in the world as of June of 2012. The fourth was about to be discovered. The last King Kelly “portrait” Graded by SGC a 40 was sold in a private sale in 2005 for $72,000. There are no auctions records on file for the King Kelly card as all three known are now in private collections.
In August 2012 Saco River Auction found the 4th Known King Kelly card along with 6 other 1888 Boston Beaneaters to include, John Clarkson, Dan Brouthers, Pop Smith, Billy Nash, Charlie Bennett and Joe Quinn.
The cards were sent out for grading to SGC and the King Kelly came back as graded 55 which is the highest grade of all the known cards.
Sports card investing has become a sound way to diversify investors’ portfolios by keeping capitol away from the volatility of the stock market. These investments have proven to be rather lucrative with high returns over the short term. Case in point is the famed T-206 Honus Wagner. The Wagner card was first sold in the 1980’s for $25000. The card was then sold to collector Jim Copeland for $100,000. Copeland sold the card to Hockey Superstar Wayne Gretzky in 1991 for $451,000. Wayne Gretzky held the card for 4 years and then sold it to Wal-Mart for $500,000. To illustrate the point the card most recently sold to the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks for $2.8 Million Dollars making it the most expensive card in history. In the span of 25 years the card’s value increase over 10,000%....you are not going to find that on Wall Street.

There is no way of knowing for certain if the King Kelly will rise to the level of the Wagner card, however with the rarity of this card it is both highly collectible and a sound investment. It will likely be years (if ever) before another one passes through an auction house, which makes this a once in a lifetime event.

[Saco River Auction]

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the auction, it was a great success. We have proven that a small auction house in Maine can successfully market valuable sports memorabilia and realize top prices for each. Just a note....we reach the buyers from around the world, there were 1200 bidders in last nights sale, we would love to sell your items!!!

Here are the results including the buyers premium.

King Kelly $71,300
John Clarkson $7,935
Dan Brouthers $7,475
Pop Smith $3,335
Joe Quinn $2,875
Billy Nash $4,370
Charlie Bennett $4,715

Grand Total $102,005

[sayhey24]

I think Leon should see a small piece of that, since there was a lot of marketing here, and it was all free!

Greg