In November 2014, Erick Summers made an amazing discovery. In a large lot being offered by Heritage Auctions, hiding in plain sight, was a true T206 gem. Unlike the typical “find” story, luck had nothing to do with this one. I hadn’t talked to Erick for awhile and I always liked the way he approached collecting T206s. I wanted to write an article about this find of his, so I decided to reach out to him and see if he wanted to collaborate on it with me. What follows is Erick’s recollection of the series of events that led to this important T206 discovery:
Written by Erick Summers
I’ve always been on the hunt for hidden T206 treasures, hence my net 54 moniker of T206Hound. I thought I had found an “uppy” (as my good friend Johnny calls them) in July 2013 in a Joe’s Vintage Auction:
http://jvscauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?inventoryid=3868
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=173776
That disappointment didn’t deter me as I continued hunting… trolling the auction sites and eBay daily looking for what others might overlook. I checked out the November 2014 Heritage auction as soon as it opened. It had several large T206 lots and as usual I poured over the images of each and every one. One particular lot immediately grabbed my attention as I could quickly tell that had some graded HOFers, a green Cobb, an over-sized Pattee and two cards with a partial name at top. Always looking for two namers, I zoomed in but immediately saw that they were double names.
The next scan showed the backs and one of the cards showed a mis-cut back that I knew I had seen before. While the back of the card was shown right-side-up, I knew that there was a upside down Doc White with an identical “miscut.” Was this really what I thought it was? For it to be an upside-down back, that means that the photographer would have had to place the cards face up, take the photo and then turn them all over. Then the card wouldn’t be aligned and the photographer would have to rotate it 180 degrees to match the others. Did this person not realize that the card was unique, or was my hypothesis incorrect?
It didn’t take me long to find an image of the card I remembered seeing on Net54:
Having to keep this discovery to myself for three weeks was going to be tough. I also knew that a lot of this size with a Cobb and several HOF was going to bring in a pretty hefty price even with the prospect of this hidden gem being included. I really don’t recall the bidding process on this, but I was ecstatic when I won. But then I started to question whether the card was what I thought it was. If I was wrong, I likely overpaid for the lot.
The next few days were nerve-racking. I wired money to Heritage and waited for the package to ship. When it finally arrived I called Johnny as I opened the box. The top card in the package was the White. I turned the card over and hunch had paid off. I was holding an “uppy!”
As with most of my discoveries, the hunt was the exciting part. I needed to sell this unique card to pay for the lot. The Philly Show was soon after and I consigned it to Al Crisafulli who had it graded by SGC at the show. I had nearly as much fun watching the bidding on my consignment. While it didn’t reach the price I was hoping, I can still recall the joy I had in the discovery.
Written by Erick Summers
Links:
https://loveofthegameauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?inventoryid=4565
80264.shttp://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?