Morey, Ritter & the Glory of Their Times

I just received a scan of a terrific letter from Larry Ritter to autograph legend Jeff Morey, essentially crediting Morey for helping him locate some players. I always had a theory that Ritter's book should be credited for getting the names of pre-war players into the minds of autograph seekers in the 1960s and 1970s. It is amazing to see that the autograph seekers themselves had a hand in Ritter's work.

Here's one of my favorite signed T206 cards from the Morey collection (Crawford -- who was also in Ritter's book), as well as a scan of the letter from Ritter to Morey.

If anyone wants to go in for the T205 set in Heritage Auctions, I would be a more than happy bidding partner -- and all I'd want would be the signed Marquard and Wheat that found their way into this collection.

Email me at SignedT206@gmail.com if you'd like some serious help bidding!

Auction Here:
http://sports.ha.com/common/view_ite...8&Lot_No=80374

Signed Marquard & Wheat here:

Loads of Changes

Well, my strategy to sell off my T206s again to make another big auction run -- this time a Signed T206 Cobb -- fell just short of my goal. So, I have very few unsigned cards left -- just my "core" few -- and am left a little shell-shocked as to how I should proceed collecting now. But I am happy to report the acquisition of this beautiful T205 Walsh auto, which came as a nice consolation prize for losing out on the Cobbie:

Enjoying Pre-War Cards Digitally

I just upgraded my Blackberry to the new hybrid touchscreen Torch, and I am very happy with it. By far the coolest thing I have done with it is uploaded my entire T206 collection -- card by card, with front and back scans on each file...



...onto the MiniSD card. Now, when I open the photo album, I can literally flip through my entire collection with my finger, at a faster speed than if I had a stack of T206 cards in my hand. And I do not even need to flip the cards over to see the backs, because the backs are side-by-side with the fronts. Also, the resolution is so good that I can "pinch" the screen in order to magnify the images and see the subtle flaws as well as beauty of each individual card.

I have to say, this technology has really improved my enjoyment of my collection. If nothing else, I was able to bring my BlackBerry to the East Coast National card show this past weekend so that I could see whether I needed certain T206 cards and whether the cards available would be upgrades for me.

I am now fully immersed in the...

...run up the mountain that is the Monster. (Borrowing from the name of the Metallica documentary, I refer to my latest collection as Some Kind Of Monster.) The first time around, I was condition conscious and went after some really nice examples of Hall of Famers.



But this time, I am pushing for quantity over quality. And I could really care less about condition.



But even so, I often accidentally fall into really nice VG-EX cards that are being lumped in with the beaters, and for hardly any additional cash whatsoever.



What has always been daunting to me is the sheer quantity of cards required for completion. But when you eschew quality of cardboard and player, the quantity part takes care of itself pretty quickly. In a few months of trolling the B/S/T threads on Net54baseball.com and an occasional hit on ebay, I have managed to accrue about 300 new T206 cards, virtually all for under $20 -- and many for less than $15 or even $10. Indeed, I am now less than 200 cards from completion. While I need almost all the HOFers and Southern Leaguers, I only need just about 70 commons now. When I get those knocked off, then the Monster will become a much more manageable beast.

While it is certainly fun to collect HOFers, they are a slower collection. Given that patience has never been one of my strong suits, I think going the commons route has really helped me this time around, because I can see quicker progress.

Also, one of the things that makes collecting T206 so hard is the constant temptation to sell. If you've got a few mid-grade HOFers, they are easy to sell for $100+ as singles. But low-grade commons take a lot more effort to part with and the return is obviously much, much lower. My low-grade T206 commons collection actually makes it harder to just cut bait. It creates its own disincentive to sell.

The Monster may want me to quit, to be sure, but it hardly cares for my approach here either. In this way, I sort of feel like I am sneaking up on the Monster. In a few acquisitions, I'm sure he'll turn around -- "What?! You again, eh?!" -- but for the time being, he sits silently, unconcerned that I am anywhere nearing completion. I have him right where I want him!!

The National

And I still say :
"Where is our boy ? Ah, we've lost our boy"
But I should know
Why you've gone
Because again and again you've explained
You've gone to the ...

National, ah ...
To the National ..

--Morrissey

Unfortunately, I will not be going to the National. But if anyone there sees any pre-WW I autographed cards, please be sure to let me know about it!!

"T205'ers" Not In T206

We often discuss why certain players did not have a cards -- or why certain cards were not produced in certain quantities based on theories about caramel and tobacco licensing and products. Well, have you ever compared the 1911 T205 checklist to the 1909-11 T206 checklist? I did this afternoon, and I have to tell you, I was quite surprised at the number of players that appear in T205 but not T206. (While we're at it, why did Burdick get to T205 before T206 if T205 came second?)

In any event, I count at least 32 T205ers not in T206.

1 Archer
2 Austin
3 Bailey
4 Cady
5 Corridon
6 Daubert
7 Dickson
8 Fischer
9 Flynn
10 Foxen
11 Frick
12 Gardner
13 Grant
14 Hanford
15 Harmon
16 Hauser
17 Lang(e)
18 Lee
19 Leever
20 Lush
21 McAllister
22 McConnell
23 Nee
24 Richie
25 Rowan
26 Scanlan
27 Shean
28 Simmons
29 Suggs
30 Vaughn
31 Kirb White
32 Wolter

Seems to me that many of these players were already established by or in the period of the T206 run (1909-11), e.g., Leever and Wolter. And clearly each was either willing or did not successfully object to his appearance on a tobacco card. So how'd they get their mugs on T205 but not T206 -- especially if T206s were issued in 1911 along with their T205 counterpart? Obviously, the number of players in T205 was significantly limited in comparison to the T206 set. So why would approximately 1/6 of the T205 set contain entirely new players? The obvious explanations would be a combination of (a) expired/new player licenses; with (b) declining/emerging talent.

Collecting Update

Not a lot has gone on in my collection since my last post. However, I am in the process of completing a trade for yet another new autographed T206 cards for my collection. If successful, it would bring my total of different signed T206 cards to a whopping 36 -- an even 3 dozen! Hard to imagine when I started six years ago by purchasing 4 signed T206 cards of Rube Marquard on ebay that I would have nearly 10 times as many within 6 years.

Naturally, it feels as though the well is drying up. But I keep my eyes open for new opportunities all the time. If you've got any leads, please let me know. My "modest" goal is to obtain 50 different signed T206 cards within my lifetime. Much of this is dependent on cards stashed away in private collections making their way into auctions or other public markets. And, of course, a lot of patience.

Stay tuned......

Signed Leifield Now On Ebay

Signed T206 Leifield For Sale/Trade

Please email me at SignedT206@gmail.com if you're interested in buying or trading for this card, which is one of my signed T206 dupes:

A few more raw lot dupes on ebay

Thanks for indulging my recent ebay auction posts:

Dupe Sale

Broke up my larger group of 63, sold off a few singles on Net54 and put the rest back on ebay in three smaller lots. Hopefully this will be a little more collector-friendly. Check them out here:

Raw Lots Bring Lots of Dupes for Sale

Check it out here:

Nothing Like A Raw Stack Of T206 Cards

Don't get me wrong, all my best cards are slabbed. And I think as a general rule that if you crack a card out of a slab in order to return it to its raw state that you are literally giving money away (sell the slabbed card, buy the raw one and keep the difference in your pocket).

But I am putting together an all (mostly) raw, condition insensitive, T206 set and last night I got a huge boost -- a lot of over 175 raw T206 cards to add to my previous stack of 100+ raw T206 cards. (Thanks to Chris from Net54!) And I have to tell you, there really is nothing like sorting through a stack of raw T206 cards -- just as they were collected by kids 100 years ago. And when they're already condition-challenged, there are no worries about nicks and bends and such. So you can really have fun with them!

Anyway, half the reason I bought this large group is because of how much fun I knew it would be to sort them.

From Misc. Pre-War

From Misc. Pre-War

Burdick's T206 Wagner and T206 Plank

Visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art today with my family and tracked down the relocated Burdick Collection. It is now on the mezzanine level of the American Wing (behind the Egyptian temple in the big room) and tucked away in the corner behind some paintings and kettles and misc junk. But I was pleasantly surprised to see Burdick's Wagner and Plank being displayed. It was pretty cool to see them together on the same wall.

May not be worth the price of admission, which now reaches $20, but at least you get to see some pretty cool baseball cards for the price.

Happy New Year!

I'd make a New Year's Resolution to blog more, but really my blogging is driven by my collecting experiences and they have lately been quite far apart with little to mention in between. Last year was a great year for adding signed T206 to my collection, having started 2009 with 31 and now beginning 2010 with 35. The 4 I added were Johnson (Pitching), Rucker (Throwing), Clarke (Batting) and Crawford (Batting). It seems rather unlikely that I'll pick up another 4 in 2010, but there are 1 or 2 others out there that may be attainable. And you never know what REA will have....