Month: October 2018

T206 Art Devlin with Old Mill Back Confirmed to Exist

Back on September 20, 2018, the above card sold as part of Heritage Auctions’ massive “Highest Graded” T206 set.  Clearly Heritage did not realize this is the only graded copy of Devlin with an Old Mill back.  Such an oversight is easy to understand given how the auction contained hundreds of cards that ultimately sold for more than this one.  Another odd wrinkle is that this card does not appear in the PSA Population Report.  At first I thought it might be because it has just been graded (back when I first looked at the auction around the 1st of September).  However, it still has not been added to the Pop Report two months later.  Now I’m guessing the reason it didn’t get added is due to the fact that the label was printed in a strange way.  The label should read: “T206 Old Mill / Art Devlin.”  Instead, it says: “1909-1911 Old Mill / Art Devlin.  It seems likely that it wasn’t catalogued correctly as a result.

I don’t always write an article specifically dedicated to new T206 front/back confirmations, but I definitely wanted to single this one out.  Typically a new confirmation will have a rare back.  When a new Broad Leaf 350 is found, it’s cool, but hardly surprising.  Many Broad Leaf 350 poses have only one or two graded copies, so finding a new one is to be expected once in a while.  Finding a new Old Mill is a different thing altogether.  For most poses, Old Mill backs are relatively plentiful.  150-350 Series Old Mills are much tougher to find, but very few poses are so rare as to lead you to believe that other unconfirmed poses are out there somewhere.  In hindsight it’s not shocking, as there are a handful of extremely Low Pop Old Mills.  Nonetheless, this is the first new Old Mill confirmation I can recall seeing in the last five or six years I have been paying attention to such things.

Prior to seeing this Devlin, I figured some 150-350 Series poses were left off the Old Mill print run in the same way that some were left off the El Principe de Gales and Sovereign 350 print runs.  Now that we know Devlin was printed, I wonder if the other unconfirmed 150-350 Series poses will eventually show up with an Old Mill back.  These are the four 150-350 Series poses who have not been found with an Old Mill back, though in theory they could be in the future:

  • Criger
  • Donohue
  • Dooin
  • Seymour (Batting)

*Seymour (Batting) appears in the SGC Pop Report with a Pop of 1.  It could exist, or it could just be a data entry error.

Link to the auction listing:
https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-cards/singles-pre-1930-/1909-11-t206-old-mill-art-devlin-psa-nm-7-pop-eight-two-higher-/a/50008-50126.s

Two T206 Uzit Backs Found at Flea Market in York, Pennsylvania

Back in June, two T206 Uzit backs turned up at the Morningstar market in York, Pennsylvania.  These two cards, Steinfeldt (with Bat), and Latham were previously unknown to the hobby.  A savvy buyer recognized their value and got a great deal on them.  He then brought them to the National Convention in Cleveland in August and got them graded by PSA.  About a week after the National, they appeared on eBay one night, where they quickly sold.

This article is a little different than most hobby news stories I write.  Typically I am just summarizing something that has happened, or re-telling an old hobby story.  In this case, however, I am part of the story because I was the eBay buyer!  Once I received the cards in the mail, I asked the seller a few follow-up questions.  I wanted to know the backstory, as it’s not everyday that a random eBay account (he hadn’t sold anything in the past year on eBay, though he did have a feedback rating in the 3000s) lists two rare T206s and nothing else.

I was excited to learn that the two cards came from the same place, and that the seller at the flea market did not realize the significance of the Uzit backs.  The fact that these cards were found together, and sold for the price of a common-backed T206 made me think it was likely Latham and Steinfeldt had been together for a very long time.  Perhaps ever since they were pulled from packs of Uzit Cigarettes.

At that point, I felt pretty strongly about my hypothesis but didn’t expect any additional supporting evidence to surface.  To my surprise, in September, I got an email from the eBay seller asking me if I knew anything about the value of the three cards below:

I had seen scans of cards from this set on net54 a few times in the past, but I had no idea what they were worth.  My first thought when I saw the pictures he sent was, these three have to be from the same find as my Steinfeldt and Latham.  I told him I didn’t know what they were worth, but if they came from the same place as my T206 Uzits, I wanted to buy them.  He confirmed that he’d them from the same flea market booth as the T206s.

I couldn’t remember what the set was called, so I did a quick google search and found that the set is referred to as the 1910 T80 Military Series.  I suggested that I could post the pictures on net54 and ask for help with their values.  He was happy with that, so I went ahead and posted.  I also got a couple emails from friends about their potential value.  Later in the day, the seller reached out to me via email with a very fair price, and a deal was struck.

Besides being super stoked to re-unite them with the T206s, I was excited about the implications of five Uzit backs being found together out in the wild.  In my opinion, it’s a virtual certainty that these five cards were pulled from Uzit packs and put away somewhere, where they remained together for over 100 years.  Obviously there’s no way of proving that, but it’s the narrative that makes the most sense (at least to me).

Before I was aware of the T80 Uzits, I was hoping to keep both Latham and Steinfeldt, but there was a chance I was going to sell one of them for the simple reason that they were expensive, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to sell enough other cards from my collection to be able to afford them.  However, after acquiring the T80s, I decided there was no way I was parting with either of the T206s.  Besides being a really cool hobby story, these five Uzit backs are now a centerpiece of my collection.

The Highest Graded T206 Set Sells for Over $8 Million Dollars!

On September 20, 2018 the highest graded T206 set in existence sold via Heritage Auctions.  Each card was offered as a stand-alone lot.  The combined sales price was staggering.  I couldn’t find the exact figure, but PSA CEO Joe Orlando posted that total was over $8,000,000.  The set boasted an unheard of thirteen PSA 10s, McGraw (Finger in Air) being the lone Hall of Fame PSA 10.  Twenty-four of the Hall Of Famers were graded PSA 9.

You can check out the auction in it’s entirety by following the link below.  In order to see the realized sale prices, you’ll have to log in, or create an account if you haven’t yet.

2018 September 20 1909-11 T206 PSA Set Registry Catalog Auction

There were dozens of cards in this auction that would have headlined most other auctions.  The cards were below were the highlights of the auction in terms of realized sale price, but I urge to to follow the link above and check out the rest of the auction.

Plank PSA 7 – $690,000

Magie PSA 8 – $660,000

Cobb Greeb Portrait Old Mill PSA 8 – $360,000

Mathewson White Cap PSA 9 – $264,000

Cobb Red Portrait PSA 8 – $192,000

McGraw Finger in Air PSA 10 – $192,000

Young Bare Hand Shows PSA 9 – $168,000

Johnson Hands at Chest PSA 9 – $156,000

Cobb Bat on Shoulder PSA 8 – $144,000

Mathewson Dark Cap PSA 8.5 – $120,000

Johnson Portrait PSA 9 – $114,000

Young Portrait PSA 8 – $114,000

Cobb Bat off Shoulder PSA 8 – $102,000

O’Hara St. Louis PSA 7 – $96,000

T206 Collecting Tips for Beginners: Spend More Time Reading and Studying Than Buying

Anytime you get excited about a new hobby, it’s only natural to jump into it headfirst.  However, with a hobby like collecting baseball cards, jumping in too fast can lead to some costly mistakes.  I’ve made a ton of such mistakes throughout my collecting journey.  I’m sure I’ll make more in the future, but it’s important to try and keep them to a minimum.

When I talk about jumping in too fast, I am referring to spending money before you really understand the value of what you are buying.  Now obviously if you’re spending your money on a product, it means that you are happy with the value you are getting in return.  So in the short term, you are probably going to be happy with your purchase.  In the long-term however, it could be a different story.  The reality is that most T206 collectors don’t hang onto their cards forever.  People sell for a number of different reasons.  Some decide the T206 set just isn’t for them.  Others realize after a while that they prefer higher (or lower) eye appeal cards, so they sell the cards they bought initially in order to buy cards that fit their new collecting vision.  Some collectors realize they enjoy both buying and selling and end up turning over their collections multiple times.  If, in the future, you find yourself selling the T206s that you bought when you first got into the hobby, you’ll be a lot happier if you paid fair prices for them than if you overpaid.

Luckily, there is a wealth of information available at your fingertips.  When I began collecting T206s in 2010, I started by joining net54baseball.com.  I spent dozens of hours poring over every T206 thread I could find, and combing through eBay listings.  It’s pretty crazy to say this, but when I first began buying T206s, I don’t think I made a single ill-advised purchase.  I spent a lot a time reading, researching, and learning before I spent any money on T206s, but it wasn’t because I have superhuman amounts of willpower.  Looking back, the reason I held off on buying any cards until I had a good idea of the market was simple.  When I started researching the set, I was merely interested in it.  I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to collect it or not.  I didn’t have my eye on a certain card I “had to have” or a wad of money burning a hole in my pocket.  That approach served me well, but I haven’t been able to replicate it with other sets that I have become enamored with over the ensuing years.

I lost money on the first handful of T205s, T207s, E135s, M101-4/5s, and Cracker Jacks that I bought.  Like most T206 collectors who end up collecting backs, I started out just collecting fronts.  The first back I really fell in love with was Brown Hindu.  I decided I wanted to have a stack of Hall of Famers with Brown Hindu backs.  I sold off my partial lower grade T206 set (with common backs), and the first cards I bought with the money were lower grade copies of Willis Portrait, both Clarke poses, Waddell Portrait, and Flick with Hindu backs.  The only one I still own is the Flick, and I lost money on each of the other four when I went to sell them.  I don’t really regret those buying decisions because I learned from each of them.  However, I feel a lot smarter about the way I began my T206 collection than the way I jumped in too fast with my T206 back collecting and my forays into other pre-war sets.

Luckily, finding information and sales data is easier now than ever.  Because the T206 set is so widely collected, and the cards are readily available, eBay is the go-to place for sales data.  Thousands of T206s sell on eBay each month.  Using the “Sold Items” tab, you can search the last three months of completed sales on eBay.  When you are collecting T206s based on the player on the front, rather than worrying about backs, eBay’s sold items archive is often all you need to learn about current market values.  When you are just starting out, I don’t think you need any other resources.  At a certain point, you may find it helpful to check out vintagecardprices.com, or “VCP”.  VCP is a pay site which offers access to a large archive of sales data.  Subscriptions are sold either by the year ($180), the month ($18), or the day ($4).  At $4, the 24 hour pass is a nice tool for a beginning collector.  I used it a handful of times when I was first learning about the T206 market.  I would keep a list of cards I wanted to look up.  When I had a day where I could devote a few hours to price research, I would pay the $4 and look up tons of cards and take notes.

Paying a little too much here and there is pretty much inevitable when you first begin collecting T206s (or anything, really).  However, a little patience and preparation will go a long way toward keeping those mistakes to a minimum.  When those inevitable mistakes happen, try not to be too hard on yourself.  If you keep at it, and refine your knowledge, your understanding of the T206 marketplace will pay dividends.  Over time, the undervalued cards you find will outweigh the ones that you overspent on in the beginning of your collecting journey.