Yeah, that's right. If you're into baseball cards at all, you know the T206s. I've posted a few pics of the few I have. This is the set that has the Honus Wagner card, formerly owned by Wayne Gretzky and others, worth literally millions of dollars.
Well, in January 2015, the Saco River Auction House, in Biddeford, Maine, will auction off the Portland Trove of T206s. One thousand, four hundred of them. All in good condition, or better. All of them. At an average of $50 per card--a very low estimate, considering there are Christy Mathewson cards, Walter Johnsons, Ty Cobbs, etc.--that's still $70,000 worth of T206 baseball cards being sold. The real fetching price will most likely by ten times that, or more than $700,000.
To show you the awesomeness of this, look at the pics:
Can you believe that?!? Oh, my goodness. This makes me want to vomit in jealousy and greed, except I can't stop looking at the pics and wishing I had them.
Of course, since there are only 527 known cards in the set (though variations pop up even now, every so often), there are going to be some duplicates. My guess is--the piles you see on the tables in the pics are the duplicates of that card. So if a John Anderson, let's say, (in the second-to-last pic, he's in the second row from the bottom, all the way to the right; looks like he's praying) is on a small stack of three cards, I'm going to bet there are three John Andersons in the collection. (There's only one John Anderson in the set.) How did this happen? Simple: The story is that a gentleman living in NYC in 1909 or so started smoking. His choice of smoke was the El Principe de Gales--one of the rarest backs in the set! Anyway, he smoked the stuff and kept the card the pouch came with. And often, it'll come with a card he already had. Like getting a duplicate in the wax packs we bought as kids.
So, if you're not doing anything on a particular day TBA in January 2015, and if the weather isn't too bad, I might just take a drive up to 2 Main Street in Biddeford, Maine--about a three hour drive, or so. Hopefully the auction is on a Friday or Saturday night! I might save up a little bit by then, and take my list of cards. If you're into T206s, maybe I'll see you there. Save your pennies: All of the cards in this trove were graded by SGC, and they're all in good condition or better.
Speaking of card collections, do you have one? If so, what's your favorite? Or do you have a favorite specific card, or set? If you don't collect cards, what do you collect, and which of those is your favorite?
P.S.--Speaking of T206s, I've got a few extras, so I'll be having contests on this blog every now and then and giving one away for free. Caveat: None of the ones I'm giving away are professionally graded. They're known as "raw" cards, and they'd list in Poor, Poor / Fair, or Fair condition, but will still be worth at least ten bucks each, even in bad condition. (I mean, they're free, so waddaya want?) I'll mail it in a tobacco card toploader. Stay tuned.
P.P.S.--In fact, what the hell. I'll have a contest here and now. Just answer the question(s) above the P.S. in a comment to this blog entry and I'll enter you in a random drawing to win one of my extra T206s from 1909-1911. Each is worth somewhere between $10 to $25 and can be easily mailed to you. If you're the winner, I'll ask that you send me an email. When you do, I'll email you pics of the ones I've got available, and you can pick whatever one you want. I'll mail it to you free of charge as well. It can fit in a regular envelope, after all.
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