Vintage Racing?

[Bored5000]

I didn't want to out the auction while it was still in progress, but an A.J. Foyt Marhoefer card sold on eBay for $255 last night. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, i had never seen a Foyt Marhoefer card up for auction other than in a compete set in about six years of looking prior to one being included in a small lot at Sterling Auctions earlier this year.

I did not bid on the one on eBay, since the card also has the same hot dog stains as mine from Sterling. But Foyt Marhoefer cards are very tough, even when they are stained with hot dog juice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1962-Marhoef...19.m1438.l2649

[Bored5000]

I believe I have written this on here before, but I have been a huge dirt-track racing fan all my life. That is my first racing love. My parents began taking me to dirt-track races when I was only a couple months old. As a result, I see lots of dirt-track Sprint Car, Late Model and Modified races each season.

I have shared the information with a couple other posters on here in the form of PMs, but Sprint Car driver Harli White is just an amazing story and worth checking out for anyone with even a passing interest in racing.

White is now 21 years old and races 360 cubic inch Sprint Cars on the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) national tour. In her first race, as a 12-year-old in 2008, she flipped her Micro Sprint and was burned over 50 percent of her body. The only reason she didn't die in the inferno that engulfed her car was that fellow racer Donnie Ray Crawford saw that track officials had emptied their hand-held fire extinguishers as the fire still raged. Crawford got out of his car and pulled White out of her burning car.

Crawford was then subsequently murdered a little over three years later when his mentally unstable grandfather shot him in the family home.

White's story is just incredible. When none of the hospitals local to the Oklahoma City area could adequately treat the severe burns she suffered, the Shriners Children's Hospital of Galveston (Texas) agreed to treat her. She went through six months of skin grafts and therapy to treat her burns. Even several years after the accident, she has had to undergo subsequent surgeries since skin grafts do not naturally stretch as a person grows the way a person's normal skin does.

There have been lots of drivers who have suffered devastating injuries in a racecar over the years, be it burns or paralysis or loss of limbs, but those drivers were almost universally grown men who knew the risks for which they were signing up. not a 12-year-old girl.

White's story is terrible in all kinds of ways: Her Micro Sprint did not have a fuel bladder to contain the fuel when the car's fuel cell ruptured. Over fifty years ago, NASCAR superstar Fireball Roberts died for the same reason. Such an inferno should not have happened in the year 2008. White was also wearing a normal, cotton T-shirt under her racing uniform instead of fire-retardant Nomex clothing. The safety standards at the Micro track she was racing at were substandard. Track officially were not wearing fire-retardant uniforms, so they were powerless to go into the fire and pull her to safety when their hand-held fire extinguishers were empty. Just the basics of a 12-year-old racing a Micro Sprint makes me cringe.

But how does she come back from such awful injuries in her first race to race again, especially on a national Sprint Car tour.

[Bored5000]

Anyway, my previous post gave a quick background of White's story. I urge people to check out the profile ESPN did of her last year. It is hard to watch without tearing up a little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvGlvkH2d-8

Here is White's racing Twitter account: The description she uses on her racing Twitter account is "Saved by the Grace of God, Donnie Ray Crawford and Shriners Hospital Galveston, Texas." She still does lots of speaking engagements on behalf of the Shriners and burn units.

https://twitter.com/harliwhiteracin?...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Here is her other Twitter account, which she also uses to talk about racing:

https://twitter.com/Harli17w

Check out the pictures of what White's back and legs still look like after being burned so badly as a 12-year-old. Warning: the pictures are shocking.

https://jamespratt.photoshelter.com/...00YxoH3YO5sBU/

https://jamespratt.photoshelter.com/...00YxoH3YO5sBU/

https://jamespratt.photoshelter.com/...00YxoH3YO5sBU/

Here is the Facebook page for her racing team. She has more pictures on her page, and is taking a rare weekend off from racing this weekend to tell her story at a pair of church services.

https://www.facebook.com/harliwhiteracing/

[carbking]

Just found this thread (normally only read the non-sports side), but since I was mentioned a couple of times, thought I would offer some information.

Marhoefer has been mentioned many times in this thread. Here is my known checklist:

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Mar..._checklist.htm

Here is another link to my website listing a few automobile and racing sets:

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Automobilecards.htm

This list NEEDS a significant amount of updating, but as one grows older, one realizes that time is one's most valuable asset!

Jon.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by carbking

Just found this thread (normally only read the non-sports side), but since I was mentioned a couple of times, thought I would offer some information.

Marhoefer has been mentioned many times in this thread. Here is my known checklist:

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Mar..._checklist.htm

Here is another link to my website listing a few automobile and racing sets:

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Automobilecards.htm

This list NEEDS a significant amount of updating, but as one grows older, one realizes that time is one's most valuable asset!

Jon.

Great to have you join the thread, Jon. So much of what I know about various racing sets is because of your posts over on the non-sports board and your website.

[carbking]

Glad you were able to use my efforts.

Unfortunately, automobile/motorcycle racing is the red-headed step-child of the card collecting hobby.

The sports collectors shun us, as evidenced by the sections available on this forum (even cricket, but no racing)

And it doesn't really fit into non-sports, but the non-sports folks seem to tolerate us as it semi-fits due to automobile or motorcycle cards which are non-sports.

The amount of activity on this thread definitely shows an interest in the topic.

Maybe, in a perverse sense, it is a good thing for we collectors that there is no more interest. Can you imagine the cost of some of the cards if suddenly the baseball folks all started collecting racing??? Some of the auto racing cards are just plain RARE Some make the T-206 Wagner seem like a "common"! Have collected these things for 53 years. Have virtually all the USA printed prior to 1996 (seemed like a good time to just specialize on certain sets/drivers, and stay away from the artificially low production "collector" items). But still missing one of the Say No to Drugs set.

I also collect stamps, and a deceased friend who was a major stamp dealer had the best (opinion) quote about the scarcity of some of this stuff. His comment: "Jon, not only do you have to wait for someone to die to acquire some of these stamps; you need to waiting in the driveway with cash to negotiate with the heirs!".

Jon.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by carbking

Glad you were able to use my efforts.

Unfortunately, automobile/motorcycle racing is the red-headed step-child of the card collecting hobby.

The sports collectors shun us, as evidenced by the sections available on this forum (even cricket, but no racing)

And it doesn't really fit into non-sports, but the non-sports folks seem to tolerate us as it semi-fits due to automobile or motorcycle cards which are non-sports.

The amount of activity on this thread definitely shows an interest in the topic.

Maybe, in a perverse sense, it is a good thing for we collectors that there is no more interest. Can you imagine the cost of some of the cards if suddenly the baseball folks all started collecting racing??? Some of the auto racing cards are just plain RARE Some make the T-206 Wagner seem like a "common"! Have collected these things for 53 years. Have virtually all the USA printed prior to 1996 (seemed like a good time to just specialize on certain sets/drivers, and stay away from the artificially low production "collector" items). But still missing one of the Say No to Drugs set.

I also collect stamps, and a deceased friend who was a major stamp dealer had the best (opinion) quote about the scarcity of some of this stuff. His comment: "Jon, not only do you have to wait for someone to die to acquire some of these stamps; you need to waiting in the driveway with cash to negotiate with the heirs!".

Jon.

Good post Jon. I have written often on here that one of the reasons I like collecting racing that there are only a few cards that individually sell for over $500; there aren't any $10,000+ cards. I love the obscure and the impossible to find, even if a card is only worth $100-200.

On the whole, I love non-sports cards or cards outside the big four sports. There is nothing at all wrong with collecting T206 or '33 Goudey, but how many times can a person see the same Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth card listed for sale or at auction?

I know baseball will always be king when it comes to cards, but I could never compete price-wise when it comes to acquiring extreme rarities. With racing cards, I can.

I actually see parallels between racing cards and wrestling cards. This board has some of that niche's top collectors posting on here, and even some extreme rarities of huge stars can be had at prices within reach of collectors. That genre of the hobby really seems to have taken off in recent years, as people are starting to appreciate what is rare and what isn't. Same thing for racing. Unless you actually follow the '72 STP set, who would know that the Lorenzen with car card is a virtual impossibility to find.

[Bored5000]

I don't remember if I posted this publicly or just in a PM with a couple board members. But when I won the auction for my Lorenzen with car card, I met the seller in person, since he only lived 30 miles from me. He also offered me a Lorenzen portrait card. I had lost the auction for the portrait card he was selling, but he said he had another one.

When I met the seller, he told me that he had won an automobile lot at an estate auction that included one Lorenzen with car card and 12 of the Lorenzen portrait cards. I agreed to pay $450 for the portrait card, and my heart kind of sank when he told me how many of them he had found. The seller did not have any idea what the cards were and initially thought they were worthless garbage after being unable to find any information online.

The Lorenzen portrait card used to be very tough to find as well, but with the addition of 12 new copies into the hobby all at once, anyone willing to pay the buy it now price for that card on eBay can have one. I know the same thing happens a couple times a year with 100-year old baseball cards, but it is always amazing when such a "find" of rare cards occurs.

[Justus]

There is also another one on eBay right now...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/152679867851

Originally Posted by Bored5000

I didn't want to out the auction while it was still in progress, but an A.J. Foyt Marhoefer card sold on eBay for $255 last night. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, i had never seen a Foyt Marhoefer card up for auction other than in a compete set in about six years of looking prior to one being included in a small lot at Sterling Auctions earlier this year.

I did not bid on the one on eBay, since the card also has the same hot dog stains as mine from Sterling. But Foyt Marhoefer cards are very tough, even when they are stained with hot dog juice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1962-Marhoef...19.m1438.l2649

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Justus

There is also another one on eBay right now...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/152679867851

That one has been on eBay for a long time. The price is a bit...optimistic on that one. LOL

[Bored5000]

And the nine-driver STP set that was bought as a BIN when the auction ended early has now reappeared on eBay for $799. (sighs)

That is close to market value of the cards, and the cards would have sold at something close to that at auction. But it is a bummer to see someone convince a seller to end an auction early, only to quickly relist the lot online at nearly double the price. I know things like that happen all the time on eBay (and even on here). But card flippers are usually not as blatant about it with racing cards because it is a thin market without many high-dollar cards.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-1972-STP-R...wAAOSwI4BZtEyX