Five Cobb backs have been discovered
Written by Dennis Purdy (VCBC - March/April 1997)
You've heard it before and
you'll hear it again: Someone, somewhere
has a new "find" to report. So just what is
a "find" anyway? For the purposes of the
baseball card hobby a "find" is a discovery
of a card or cards of substantial importance
to or impact on the hobby that finally makes
its way into the hobby. Just such a "find"
recently occurred in Georgia.
An incredible find of five T206 Ty
Cobbs with Ty Cobb backs have been
discovered. Previous to this only six
examples of this legendary rarity were
known to exist. These five newly
discovered cards were found by a non-collector
who happened to come across
them in a book while going through his
great-grandfather's old papers and effects.
All five cards have been consigned to
Robert Edward Auctions' June 1997
auction. Each card will be offered
individually. The T206 Ty Cobb with Ty
Cobb Back is universally recognized as one
of the most legendary of all baseball card
rarities. These five cards represent one of
the most incredible and exciting finds in
the history of card collecting.
It's interesting to note how the cards
were found and what led to their
appearance on the hobby scene. The
following letter was written by the
discoverer of the cards to Robert Lifson,
owner of Robert Edward Auctions:
Dear Mr. Lifson:
Enclosed are copies of the old book in
which the Ty Cobb cards were preserved.
I tried to place the remaining cards back
as they were when I got them so you could
see how they spent the last 70 or so years.
As I told you over the phone, my great-grandfather,
John W. Hudson, operated a
mercantile store in Reynolds, Georgia from
around the turn of the century until 1917,
when he moved the family to Talhotton,
Georgia. A lot of their old stuff was packed
up and stored in various places, as they
moved frequently in the early 1920's. My
father and I acquired several boxes of the
old books years ago, all water damaged,
and almost stopped off at the dump with
them on the way home.
I still have Grandpa's cast iron bank
in the shape of a baseball player holding a
bat. My mother has his pocket watch and
11 Confederate five hundred dollar bills. I
also have a Reach Baseball Guide for 1909
with front cover missing.
Although Grandpa was the one who
smoked the Piedmonts and, eventually, the
Ty Cobb Tobacco, it was my mother's
brother John Hudson who wore the cards
outplaying with them. He would have been
the one who pasted and preserved them
between the pages of this volume.
Miraculously, these cards were glued in
place with only a paste mixture of flour and
water, so they simply flaked out as I turned
the pages.
Ty Cobb was very much revered here
as one of, if not the first, national hero to
emerge from Georgia during a period of
time when the souls of southern folk were
still hurting from losses suffered in the war
of 1861-65. This more than likely accounts
for his popularity here, aside from his
playing record. It would he interesting to
know what areas of the country the other
known Cobb brand backs originated from.
Although there is a degree of sentiment
attached to these things, we agree that
they're doing no good stuck in a drawer
somewhere.
Although the discoverer found the
cards about 10 years ago inside a thin,
hardbound book of House and Senate
Memorial Speeches given in honor of
recently deceased Georgia Congressman
Rufus Lestcr, it was not until this past year
when he bought a price guide that he
became aware of their great rarity and
value, another factor in bringing cards out
of the closet and into the hobby. After
initially discovering the cards, they were
offered to several local collectors, but the
$10 to $200 offers were not enough to pry
them loose from the great-grandson.
So now the five Cobb-back Cobb
cards (considerably more rare than even
the famous Honus Wagner card) are back
in the hands of the hobby. And these five cards will he part of
a spectacular offering by Robert Edward
Auctions this summer. Each card has a
minimum bid of $5,000.
In September of 1994, a Fair-Good
example sold in a Robert Edward Auction
for $20,123, Over the years there have
been only three other sales of Ty Cobb
cards with Ty Cobb backs at public auction.
One sold for $17,000, the other two each
sold for slightly more than $60,000 and
all of these examples had significant
condition problems.
Some might question the wisdom of
putting all five cards up for auction at the
same time. According to Rob Lifson,
offering five cards at once is the fairest to
all, in that he is able to avoid potentially
creating a situation where the buyer of the
first card (and subsequent buyers) would
feel disappointed as example after example
came to the marketplace. At the same time,
offering all five cards at once allows Robert
Edward Auctions to create the excitement
and "circus atmosphere" this find deserves,
and to present a collecting event which will
long be remembered as one of the most
exciting and special buying opportunities
in the history of card collecting.
SIDE NOTE:
T206 Ty Cobb advertisement can only be found with Ty Cobb red background front.
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