Vintage Lacrosse cards - need some education

[Woundedduck]

Been showing my nephew some of my vintage baseball cards. He's big into lacrosse and asked about cards for the sport. I knew nothing about it so I did a quick ebay search and found some modern cards, but was also surprised to see some vintage stuff there as well. I know nothing about vintage lacrosse stuff and was hoping someone here could give me a summarized education on what's available and what one could expect to spend on vintage lacrosse stuff. We may look to pick up a few if the cost is not prohibitive. Thanks

Eric

[Bosox Blair]

Hi there,

I collect vintage Lacrosse cards.

The ones we see most in North America are the 3 Canadian-issued Imperial Tobacco sets designated C60, C59 and C61 from the 1910-1912 period.

C60 is understood to be the earliest set (98 cards), followed by C59 (100 cards) and then C61. The C60 and C59 cards resemble T206s in a sense - they are white-bordered tobacco cards featuring a mix of portraits and some images of players with equipment. C60 and C59 almost entirely overlap...the first 98 cards are the same subjects (some with different background color)...the additional 2 cards in C59 are second pose cards of Dude Sumner #99 and Newsy Lalonde #100, both with Vancouver.

C61 is a black and white photo set on the same sized tobacco card stock, and is seen less often IMO. All 3 sets are considerably scarcer than the Hockey tobacco issues of the day (and WAY scarcer than T206/T205 baseball).

These sets are expensive to collect in high grade, but you can spot affordable commons in lower grade on eBay if you keep your eyes open. If you want to splurge, there are some PSA-graded examples of C60 regularly for sale on eBay.

Within the sets are Lacrosse cards of several Hockey Hall-of-Famers...these are priced far above the common level. Several of these are acknowledged as "rookie cards" of these Hockey stars. The best known of these (and most expensive) is Edouard "Newsy" Lalonde.

(If you are keen to land a couple cards for yourself, I have a few duplicates that I would offer for sale for a fair price too - even Hall-of-Famers - drop me a PM)

Cheers,
Blair

[Woundedduck]

Thanks a ton Blair. That was above and beyond anything I'd hoped for.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Woundedduck

Thanks a ton Blair. That was above and beyond anything I'd hoped for.

You are most welcome!

Cheers,
Blair

[Bosox Blair]

Just posted some graded C60 Lacrosse for sale to the B/S/T "Everything Else" section, if anyone wants to take a look!

Cheers,
Blair

[gfgcom]

I am selling lots of these up on ebay right now and have more scheduled to go up in the next few weeks and will possibly be selling some complete sets too

here is a link to one of them.



https://www.ebay.com/itm/266344363191

[Jewish-collector]

Originally Posted by Woundedduck

We may look to pick up a few if the cost is not prohibitive.

Define not prohibitive. $200 ? $1000 ? $20,000 ?

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by gfgcom

I am selling lots of these up on ebay right now and have more scheduled to go up in the next few weeks and will possibly be selling some complete sets too

here is a link to one of them.



https://www.ebay.com/itm/266344363191

One of the cards you have is interesting. Tom Gorman won a gold medal in lacrosse at the 1908 Olympics. He brought professional baseball to Ottawa in 1951 - Ottawa Giants. He also owned the Ottawa Senators of the QSHL.

Is one of the other cards misnamed? Could G Cattarinich be George Cattanach who played for the Winnipeg Shamrocks and won a gold medal in lacrosse at the 1904 Olympics? I could not find either name on the Canadian Lacross HOF list.

I did notice on their list that they had the 1928 Canadian Olympic lacrosse team as inductees. Lacrosse was only a demonstration sport in Amsterdam. Not technically Olympians much like members of the 1984 and 1988 U.S. Olympic baseball teams - McGuire, Larkin, Jim Abbott etc.

[Exhibitman]

One other name of note in the C60 and C59 sets is heavyweight champ and boxing HOFer Tommy Burns. Here is the C60:



The C59 is the same image with a different colored background.