Tag: upside-down back

Doc White: Hidden in Plain Sight

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

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-cards/lots/1909-11-t206-white-borders-partial-set-97-with-hofers-and-print-errors/a/7120-

80264.shttp://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?

 

T206 Cards From the Same Sheet

This trio of Piedmont 350s from the same sheet was sold recently by Huggins & Scott Auctions.  Seeing them got me thinking about other cards that we know came from the same sheet.  In his fantastic book, Inside T206, Scot Reader surmises that the total number of T206s produced could be over 100 million.  Given this staggering estimate, it makes sense that finding two or more T206s that were printed on a single sheet is no easy task.

One of my favorite things about this set is that it lends itself very well to research.  If you learn something about a certain pose or front/back combo, there is often a logical pattern to be followed, which will lead you to more discoveries.  The same cannot really be said for today’s topic.  Finding T206 sheet mates is very cool, but it usually is the result of random happenstance rather than a larger pattern.  In that same vein, there will be little structure to this article.  I mainly just wanted to post some of the coolest T206 sheet mates.

Most of the times that we’re able to trace multiple T206s back to the same sheet, they will be of the printer’s scrap variety.  The reason for this is pretty simple.  In order to make connections between two or more cards, there has to be something that makes them unique.

Take these Hoblitzell and Oakes Piedmont 350s.  They showed up on eBay one day in a group of offerings from the same seller.  I wasn’t able to find out anything about where they came from, but it doesn’t take much of a logical leap to assume they were cut from the same sheet and kept together all this time.  Their large, hand-cut borders and darker-than-normal colors are a dead giveaway.  I’m not sure there’s anything to be learned from them, but they sure are cool.

These three Blank Backs share a similar cut as well as adhesive residue on all four corners of the backs.  They were clearly kept together in an album or frame for many years.  They made their way to market via SCP auctions, where I was able to buy them and keep them together.

The “Lash’s Bitters” T206s are another example of printer’s scrap that work as puzzle pieces that help us to re-construct a sheet of T206 cards.  I have an article in the works featuring these awesome scraps, so I’ll keep this description short.  The back of these T206s was used as a test sheet for trade cards featuring “Lash’s Bitters”.  The fronts look a little odd as well.  They appear to be missing a layer of red.

T206 collector John Dreker was kind enough to send me scans of these four upside-down and mis-cut Piedmont 150s that he owns.  He found Davis in a group of 40 cards he bought in 2000, then bought Tannehill, Doolin, and Cicotte together in the same group in 2002.

This group of cards has been dubbed the “Test Print Sheet”.  As you can see, the backs have a lot going on.

Much like the Lash’s Bitters sheet above, the back of the sheet that Griffith, Lake, and O’Leary were on was used as a test sheet for a Twin Oaks Tobacco advertisement.

This quartet of Blank Backs are very likely to have originated from the same sheet.