Old Judge Cabinet HOFers Scarcity List

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

I will probably never own a Old Judge cabinet, HOF or not, but I love that fellow collectors do and share their research. Thanks Jay and Joe!


And now for the highly anticipated non-sensical portion of my reply. I assume that the Galvin is scarcer because of the aversion, even back then, of receiving a card featuring a Pud.

Of course I have no way of stopping anyone from pullling their Pud and posting it on here.


Brian (no pud-pix PM's, please)

Got some bad or good news, depending on how you look at it. The first thing is that his nickname rhymes with good, not dud. It was in reference to pudding, so the same pronunciation.

The other is that he was very rarely referred to as Pud during his life. That nickname became popular when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame and the newspapers all printed bio info on the new players. That was 63 years after his death. He was mainly called Jeems or Gentleman Jeems during his life. The usage split between the Jeems variations and Pud would be over 99%, as in closer to 99.9% to 0.1%. That completely changed during his HOF announcement. He should not be known to us as Pud Galvin.

[oldjudge]

Hi John! You know Pirates history as well as anyone. Any idea why Galvin N173s are so scarce!

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Hi John! You know Pirates history as well as anyone. Any idea why Galvin N173s are so scarce!

I haven't got a clue. He was playing regularly during the entire process of the Old Judge set and he was quite popular in the Pittsburgh area because he was a star there during the International Association days first, before rejoining them later. You would assume that Pittsburgh fans wanted his card. He also lived in town and had a business as well.

Maybe the reason is just somebody collected them and they were either lost for a reason or sit in an old house undiscovered. Plenty of old houses in Pittsburgh. I'm sure some have been in the same family since back then, with an attic that has never fully been searched

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by z28jd

Got some bad or good news, depending on how you look at it. The first thing is that his nickname rhymes with good, not dud. It was in reference to pudding, so the same pronunciation.

The other is that he was very rarely referred to as Pud during his life. That nickname became popular when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame and the newspapers all printed bio info on the new players. That was 63 years after his death. He was mainly called Jeems or Gentleman Jeems during his life. The usage split between the Jeems variations and Pud would be over 99%, as in closer to 99.9% to 0.1%. That completely changed during his HOF announcement. He should not be known to us as Pud Galvin.

Thanks John. Disaster averted!


Brian

[Schwertfeger1007]

Thank you for posting this. I was able to get one of these in LOTG last night. I'll obviously never collect all of these but I'm super happy with the small handful I've been able to acquire

[BRoberts]

Love it when a plan comes together.

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by Schwertfeger1007

Thank you for posting this. I was able to get one of these in LOTG last night. I'll obviously never collect all of these but I'm super happy with the small handful I've been able to acquire

Congratulations! Don't worry about trying to complete the set. As far as we know there is no known Griffith and the only Galvins we know of are in museums.

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by z28jd

Got some bad or good news, depending on how you look at it. The first thing is that his nickname rhymes with good, not dud. It was in reference to pudding, so the same pronunciation.

The other is that he was very rarely referred to as Pud during his life. That nickname became popular when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame and the newspapers all printed bio info on the new players. That was 63 years after his death. He was mainly called Jeems or Gentleman Jeems during his life. The usage split between the Jeems variations and Pud would be over 99%, as in closer to 99.9% to 0.1%. That completely changed during his HOF announcement. He should not be known to us as Pud Galvin.

If you look at the list all the Pittsburgh guys are near the top. I wonder if Old Judges didn't sell well in Pittsburgh.

[triwak]

My only N173 HOFer. ALMOST in the top (rare) half. And every thread needs a card.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

If you look at the list all the Pittsburgh guys are near the top. I wonder if Old Judges didn't sell well in Pittsburgh.

You would probably have to do a survey of N173 examples and see if Pittsburgh players in general were tough to find. In my collection, 100% of my N173s are Pittsburgh players, so they seem very common

[Joe_G.]

Circling back to most common non-HoFer I'd like to nominate Charlie Bennett who wasn't introduced to N172/N173 until 1889 (after joining Boston).

[alywa]

Cool info. I only have one (Brouthers), but love seeing the list. Great work!

[Leon]

Posting an image for Jay.
Nice N173.

[oldjudge]

Thanks Leon! Joe mentioned Bennett and my Bennett is one of my nicest cards.