SIGNED ROOKIES

PICKUPS

May 18th, 2021

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to update my site as I would have liked. This past year (2020) with the pandemic was absolutely nuts; but it seems like we are finally starting to get back to normal.

Have had some great pickups this past year since my last update; highlighted by ANOTHER signed Cobb T206. This will be the third one I have owned out of the four different variations Cobb has in the epic set. Currently, I have both of the bat on/off shoulder variations signed.

The most recent one being from the fabled “George Sands Collection”. Sands was ahead of his time in getting autographs, especially taking advantage of sending them through the mail to superstars. This particular one is from 1955 as he sent in 5 Cobb’s (bat on/off shoulder, T206 green portrait, red portrait and T205 gold border).

The bat on and off shoulder are certainly my favorite versions of his T206 cards; I prefer “playing” images for cards rather than a portrait (though they are quite stunning for this set). Here, you can see Cobb wielding his weapon as he does his iconic stare towards the pitcher.

Outside of the Cobb, my next big pickup was a signed T206 Speaker. Extremely excited to add this one to my collection to finally upgrade from my signed ‘33 Goudey of his. What I love about Speaker is how he took his time to really appreciate his signature; it truly is a beauty. Can’t go wrong either with the image as well. Glad he signed it over his body rather than the blue background to make it blend in.

Whenever you can get an upgrade for a great price, you can’t complain about that. I had a few ‘38 Goudey Heads Up Doerr signed rookies, but they were in pretty beat up condition. I am very excited to upgrade to this one in great condition that presents better when in hand. Unfortunately, this is a later in life signature so a tad shaky and not the cartoon version.

In August, the single greatest signed Goudey collection finally hit the auction block through Wheatland Auctions; the Uncle Jimmy Collection, highlighted by SIX signed Goudey Babe Ruth’s, the finest ever known. Here is what Sports Collectors Digest had to say about this historic collection.

It is an absolute honor to have been able to add three of these cards from this iconic collection; Rabbit Marranville, Goose Goslin, Lefty Gomez and Jim Bottomley. These were all big upgrades for me.

The Goudey upgrade run continued with this beautiful Freddie Lindstrom.

I wouldn’t necessarily say this is an upgrade per say, but it is a very cool card because of the inscription Bunning added for his perfect game.

While he is not a Hall of Famer, he will go down in baseball lore for unfortunate reasons. On June 2nd 1925 would go down in baseball infamy as Wally Pipp had removed himself from the starting lineup due to a headache and double vision from being hit in the head two days prior.

The man who replaced him; Lou Gehrig. This was his second game of his historic 2,130 consecutive games played (the previous night he appeared as a pinch hitter, this was his first start at first base). After that, Pipp never saw the starting lineup again.

Presented here is an extremely scarce 1927 Exhibits signed in his typical beautiful script.

Those have been the large pickups I have had in the past year and will hopefully be taking a break from spending. As always, I am willing to do trades!

march 31st, 2020

Well, I must admit, I am not that good at keeping my site updated lol. Unfortunately with the lock-down/quarantine in place, I now have no excuses to not update it.

Without further ado, here is the best pickup of the year:

2019 was an absolute whirlwind, in the best possible way. I was able to get some MONSTROUS cards. Here are my highlights from 2019:

As you can see, it was a pretty damn good year! The most difficult were definitely the Mathews and Heilmann. I didn’t expect to get them this soon because they are seldom seen, especially the Mathews. Speaker is right up there and who can go wrong with the stunning yellow background to go with the vintage fountain pen signature. Happy to have added Grover and check that one off of my list as well. Also, I was able to get a very tough 2009 Bowman Chrome Gold refractor autographed rookie card of Mike Trout, as well as some BGS Gem X-Fractors and base chrome autographs.

Now, here are the big boys of 2020 so far:

Yep…Just got my SECOND signed Cobb T206. But, it was short lived as Cobb was involved in a MASSIVE trade...But, before that, here is a fun picture of the brothers together:

Sadly, they didn’t get to be together for too long, as the Green Portrait ended up being traded for some Hall of Fame arms; signed T206’s of Walter Johnson and Cy Young! Enjoy:

While it certainly sucks that I don’t have the Green Portrait anymore, I am on Cloud 9 with these. My good friend, Paul, has had these in his collection forever and we were finally able to make out a deal; all in needed was to get the Cobb to trade. It was not a straight up trade and there were other pieces involved that we won’t be disclosing.

December 19th, 2018

So sorry for the lack of updates, but trust me, this one is worth it. One of my ‘grail’ cards has been a Ty Cobb signed T206. I was an under-bidder for one 3 years ago and hadn’t seen one for sale; until Novembers Robert Edwards Auctions. The EXACT SAME COBB I was the under-bidder went up for sale, so I had to have her. It seemed like destiny brought her back to me.

I won the Cobb, and I also won an very historic Connie Mack 1887 Old Judge autographed card as well as an Elmer Flick signed T206.

Enjoy!

july 6th, 2017

Well, it has been a crazy past year, my friends. Just three months ago, I got the most important pickup of my life; my sweet little daughter Elsie :).

As you can see, she's clearly more important than a picture of an old-dead guy on a piece of cardboard :).

Now! On to the card pickups! It sure as hell has been an historic year for me in vintage cards as well as modern. You will see my updates below through the last year that I had missed including, starting with the Robinson's at the bottom.

july 2017

Well, not a baseball card and I don't card because technically it's an Hall of Fame Autographed Rookie Card :).

May-June 2017

Another special few months getting a few cards I never thought I would get. Sam Crawford was one of THE premier power hitters right before Babe Ruth. I am blessed and honored to have been able to trade for this with my good friend Paul. I have been looking for years for a decently priced copy and wasn't able to find one, until a trade offer came up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

A very underrated card that can be forgotten from the set to collect. Having died in 1948, Pennock is one of THE most sought after signed cards of the 1933 Goudey set. I have only seen a few copies and far less copies of him than Ruth or Gehrig.

Yeah, where do I begin after showing off Wahoo LOL. How about with a Goose? A very, very difficult signed 1933 Goudey of Goose Goslin happened to fall in my lap through a lot I did not expect to win. Along with the Goose was a fella named Dazzy Vance who wanted to tag along in a separate lot. That's not all, they just so happened to be with a few other HoF signed Goudey upgrades I have been looking for: Ted Lyons, Red Ruffing, Bill Terry, Bill Dickey, Waite Hoyte, Earle Combs, Freddie Lindstrom, , Charles Gehringer, Sam Rice and Earl Averill. Phew! What a month and especially of upgrades! The dupes will be listed shortly!

To cap off of June, I was able to pickup a very nice example of a 1961 Topps signed rookie of Juan Marichal.

april 2017

April was simply amazing! I got a card (though modern) that I made an exception for! A 1991 Upper Deck autographed rookie card of Michael Jordan!!! I saw one of these for sale at the 2013 Chicago National and ever since I had to get one. It was severely over priced at the Nat'l so I was hoping to get a copy for relatively cheap. Not only was it that, it was cheaper than my intended budget significantly!

Lastly, I got the Don. Don Drysdale that is. The last signed rookie HoF'er I needed from the 1957 set (Mazeroski, Bunning, Frank and Brooks Robinson).

February 2017

This month was fun as I got a rookie era signature of Mr. Cub on his rookie as well as I finally said screw it, let's cross Boudreau off the list!

December 2016

I went Duck Hunting. This next group was fun to pickup, as a few were slight upgrades and some vintage era signatures! The Palmer is signed from either in '66 or '67, the Ruffing he dated himself as 1939. Looking back at his older signature styles, the black fountain pen matches an 1939-40 signature.

august 2016

This was a huge pickup for me as well as another neat card that is very unique. I finally got my Rajah (Rogers Hornsby) signed 1933 Goudey as well as a signed Lil Poison (Lloyd Waner) autographed 1933 Goudey. What makes the Waner unique is that it was actually signed by his brother Paul Waner, then got erased. You can still see faint remnants of Big Poison's autograph on his little brothers' card!

june 12, 2016

Gold is good enough for me! I have been chasing this card for years from a fellow cardboard collecting friend, and now, I finally own it as mine! I proudly introduce an autographed 1911 T205 Gold Border of Hall of Famer Ed Walsh!!! There is a 1909-11 T206 signed of his, but I'm happy with the Gold as it's my preferred set of those two :D.

The lifetime leader in Earned Run Average at 1.82, "Big Ed" Walsh won 40 games for the 1908 Chicago White Sox while pitching an astonishing 464 innings. Slowly damaging his arm while eclipsing 360 innings in three consecutive seasons between 1910 and 1912, the Chite Sox hurler was all but finished by 1913, never again reaching even 50 innings pitched in his last four seasons. Still, his earned run average and 195 career wins were enough to enshrine him in the Hall of Fame in 1946.

This example of Walsh's T205 "Gold Border" card was signed in Walsh's hand, in heavy blue ink. Authenticated by PSA/DNA, this is the only Walsh-signed tobacco card we have seen, the scarcity of his signature on a baseball card well known among hobbyists. This is an exceptional example, one of several HOF signed tobacco cards to be featured in this auction.

2016

First off, let's meet the Robinson's. I have been waiting for some fine examples of these cards on and off for a few years now. I am so proud to finally add two mid/high-grade signed rookies of these legends! It's nice to check off these two legends from the same gorgeous set!

OCTOBER 16TH, 2016

I got a few signed Goudeys in Huggins' most auction (along with the Collins) that I'll slowly be showing off. There were about 140+ different signed Goudeys being offered from a long time collector. He/she got them all signed at Fenway Park in the mid-late 30's. The majority of these players were still playing while a few (like the Ruth and Collins for example) were signed at the stadium but as guests.

Nothing getting a lot of history, provenance and background on these being signed. I am extremely exited to add the tough Eppa Rixey. The card itself is in very good condition with a beautiful fountain pen signature that grades 9-10. I have seen a handful signed so I'm glad to finally check this off my list!

october 13th, 2016

Well, it's been a long hiatus since I have updated this, so I apologize! Been a crazy busy year with getting married, building a house and moving, got a couple puppies and am expecting a kid! Phew! But, I will be updating the site quite often like last year. 

So, I have a lot of cards to showoff since then, I'll slowly start to show them in separate posts. But, I feel like this is the perfect card to start off with; a signed 1933 Goudey Eddie Collins. I know there are a handful of these around, but I did NOT expect to ever grab hold of one. I know I said that the Ruth was a card I never expected to get because of the value (there are plenty of signed Ruth Goudey's around) but this is far more scarce so I didn't know for sure if I would be able to snag one.

Luckily, Huggins had a collector consign a monstrous signed 33 Goudey collection with a ton of rare HoF'ers including Ruth, Foxx, Frisch, Vaughan, Hornsby, Vance, Simmons, Cochrane, Bottomley etc. As well as common toughies like Earl Clark, Joe Judge, Bill Walker, Ed Brandt, Bill Cissell and many many others. 

I think with this large offering, it really helped drop down the prices on many other auctions. The Ruth, Foxx and Clark were targeted the heaviest so I figured I may get a chance at a few of these lots. The card is very clean and has sharp colors. It is signed in pencil that grades about 7-8. I am very happy with the Collins and can't wait to show some others that I won from this great Huggins offering!

arpil 7th, 2015

Unfortunately I couldn't post these sooner, but am very excited about these three pickups, two of which are quite rare. The first is one of the rarest signed back HOF T206 in EXISTANCE! Yep, heard it right, only (and I say that because I have not seen any) a few other HOF'ers with a tougher T206 back signed. This is the El Principe De Gales back, which is probably in the middle to middle-bottom of the pack for scarcity.

Next, Yaz. This is so freaking cool, you rarely see any cards signed from pre-70's HOF'ers that were signed early in their playing career. What makes this so neat is that this is not only signed twice by Yaz, but it is signed twice from two different time periods. The one on the left is his current signature, and the one of the right in ink his is rookie/early career signature. WOW! Best part is that JSA certified it and they also included in the description that it is from two different time periods.

Last but not least, a Rube Walberg signed 1927 W560 Joker Playing Card. Doesn't fit my collection, but hey, how can you go wrong with a signed pre-war card! Especially one where Ruth was also a joker in the set!

march 22nd, 2015

Finally crossed off one tough card on my list, Dizzy Dean Goudey, as well as added another monster, Mel Ott 1940 Play Ball. Surprisingly, there aren't many Dean signed Goudey's, and like Foxx, Ott is also an extremely difficult signature to get on a card as well.

March 1st, 2015

Well, it has been quite a while since I have gotten a meaningful pickup, which I do not mind because that means I can save up to trade or make a purchase at some point.

My most recent pickup would be this beautifully signed 1934 Goudey Charles Gehringer. I already have his 1933 Goudey signed, but I simply could not resist the low price on this card, as well as he may have one of the most artistic autographs I have yet to see.

auction NEWS & UPDATES

the david hall t206 collection part 4

Heritage Auctions is featuring quite an amazing T206 collection from revered collector, David Hall. This is the fourth installment of his collection that they are auctioning off. Many of these T206’s feature stunning images, vibrant colors and rare backs. It has been fun tracking the lots to see which ones explode.

Auction ends on April 16th.

goldin auctions catches huge trout

Goldin Auctions is going to be listing a Holy Grail of Mike Trout cards; 2009 Bowman Chrome RED refractor autograph /5. There are only FIVE copies of this card available in the entire world. I had an opportunity years ago to get a PSA 10 for $50,000 or less. This copy is a BGS 9.5 with a perfect 10 autograph. While not quite a PSA 10, it still is stunning and will be interesting to see if it can hit $350,000.

REA (Robert edwards auctions) is offering some big spring items

On April 3rd, bidding opens up for REA’s annual Spring Auction. There are some big items including a Hank Aaron 1954 Topps PSA 9 rookie card that should fetch well over six-figures, a Babe Ruth 1914 M181 Blank Back rookie and a stunning Ty Cobb Sporting Life Cabinet that is graded a PSA 2 but presents beautifully with a crisp image.

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