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Just So Tobacco Cy Young - One Of Hobby's Greatest Cards
MattyC
Posts: 1,335 ✭✭
So I was looking at Cy Young's cards the other day, and spent some time delving into what seems to be his earliest card: the 1893 Just So Tobacco. I was amazed to learn that there is precisely one copy known to exist. It has never been offered at auction.
I had always known of the Just So cards, and their extreme rarity-- I just never really sat down and read about them the way I should have. We all know that Young's name endures to this day due to the award, and his likely unbreakable 511 wins. There was a fabulous story a few years back, one of the coolest "find" stories I'd ever heard: a man was remodeling his mother's kitchen and found the only existing copy of Buck Ewing (HOF) from the Just So set nailed to a wall beam. These cards depicted only members of the then Cleveland Spiders, and I believe at the time of that find, collectors could only theorize about a Ewing ever having existed.
Some very experienced collectors I know pegged the value of this Cy Young card at over one million, should it ever be offered for sale. I thought this has to be the most widely 'slept on' card of that stature. Most collectors' minds go to the Wagner, Plank, Balt News Ruth, 52 Mantle, Old Mill Jackson, M101-5 Ruth RC, and many others when it comes to hobby's top cards-- but a true 1/1 of early Cy Young-- all rarity and no condition-rarity here-- this is a card that really captures the imagination. We all know of cards that are extremely rare, but rarity alone can't take a card to the top of the hobby. Couple rarity of this extreme type with the early card of a towering name...wow.
Anyways thought some might be like me and never have put a momentary spotlight on this insane card. This is another card that leaves me questioning what blunders and wrong turns I've made in my business life, that I am not rolling in that Zuckerberg Facebook money and can get this Cy Young card where it belongs, namely beside my stack of PSA 10 1980's Don Mattinglys and ungraded Sportflic Big Six Rookies.
I really do blame Billy Joe Robideaux for my not being a multi millionaire by now; the guy basically screwed me; if he became the next Rob Deer and that card was worth $500k, who knows what else I could get in trade for that Sportflic besides the Cy Young today?
In this way looking at amazing cards always dovetails perfectly with a soul-crushing depression and dark period of self-examination, culminating in a comforting cloud of weed and rage-o-holic Call of Duty session, in which somehow digitally blowing away the avatars of a bunch of teenagers who snipe like cowards cathartically cleanses me of the pain of unrealized potential. At the same time I break everything in reach, as I go 10-50 in said video game. Alternately, I opt for a tectonic chunk of Colombia and a few dimes (gorgeous women). Wait...if I had saved all the money blown on the latter and on rebuying everything I break after playing COD, I might have more cards. Gotta work on that.
So what was I saying? Ah, yes, Cy Young's Just So Tobacco card is pretty awesome. And can't remember us discussing it.
PS: Powerball tonight. Don't forget to play. I have more dreams than I do dollars but the slogan tells me I just need one of each to win!
I had always known of the Just So cards, and their extreme rarity-- I just never really sat down and read about them the way I should have. We all know that Young's name endures to this day due to the award, and his likely unbreakable 511 wins. There was a fabulous story a few years back, one of the coolest "find" stories I'd ever heard: a man was remodeling his mother's kitchen and found the only existing copy of Buck Ewing (HOF) from the Just So set nailed to a wall beam. These cards depicted only members of the then Cleveland Spiders, and I believe at the time of that find, collectors could only theorize about a Ewing ever having existed.
Some very experienced collectors I know pegged the value of this Cy Young card at over one million, should it ever be offered for sale. I thought this has to be the most widely 'slept on' card of that stature. Most collectors' minds go to the Wagner, Plank, Balt News Ruth, 52 Mantle, Old Mill Jackson, M101-5 Ruth RC, and many others when it comes to hobby's top cards-- but a true 1/1 of early Cy Young-- all rarity and no condition-rarity here-- this is a card that really captures the imagination. We all know of cards that are extremely rare, but rarity alone can't take a card to the top of the hobby. Couple rarity of this extreme type with the early card of a towering name...wow.
Anyways thought some might be like me and never have put a momentary spotlight on this insane card. This is another card that leaves me questioning what blunders and wrong turns I've made in my business life, that I am not rolling in that Zuckerberg Facebook money and can get this Cy Young card where it belongs, namely beside my stack of PSA 10 1980's Don Mattinglys and ungraded Sportflic Big Six Rookies.
I really do blame Billy Joe Robideaux for my not being a multi millionaire by now; the guy basically screwed me; if he became the next Rob Deer and that card was worth $500k, who knows what else I could get in trade for that Sportflic besides the Cy Young today?
In this way looking at amazing cards always dovetails perfectly with a soul-crushing depression and dark period of self-examination, culminating in a comforting cloud of weed and rage-o-holic Call of Duty session, in which somehow digitally blowing away the avatars of a bunch of teenagers who snipe like cowards cathartically cleanses me of the pain of unrealized potential. At the same time I break everything in reach, as I go 10-50 in said video game. Alternately, I opt for a tectonic chunk of Colombia and a few dimes (gorgeous women). Wait...if I had saved all the money blown on the latter and on rebuying everything I break after playing COD, I might have more cards. Gotta work on that.
So what was I saying? Ah, yes, Cy Young's Just So Tobacco card is pretty awesome. And can't remember us discussing it.
PS: Powerball tonight. Don't forget to play. I have more dreams than I do dollars but the slogan tells me I just need one of each to win!
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Comments
saucywombat@hotmail.com
His #3 card? That's a tease. What are numbers 1 and 2-- gotta know now.
<< <i>Leon,
His #3 card? That's a tease. What are numbers 1 and 2-- gotta know now. >>
Raw T206 Wags that will grade a 5 to a 5.5 but he's not a grading guy....and a Four Base Hits Kelly is his favorite.....one of two known and I used to own the other...when I did 19th century. Really a very nice person and I spend a fair amount of time with him at the National Conventions.....and we regularly talk on the phone. He goes pretty far back in the hobby.
Leon - any idea (just ball parking it), what that card would fetch at a major auction house?
Jeff
<< <i>What a cool looking card.
Leon - any idea (just ball parking it), what that card would fetch at a major auction house? >>
Hey Jeff
Some folks have said 1m. My guess would be plus or minus 2m.....just a guess though as it will probably never come up for sale. I hope it doesn't because that means something would have happened to my friend. No way will he sell it (and I doubt he will need to) with it being his own decision.
<< <i>So how can I trade lives with this guy-- or at least maybe he want to adopt a 36 yr old man child? C'mon Leon make it happen. >>
But if you traded lives with him I don't think you'd be allowed to bid in the REA auction.
That would be a trade-off I'd have to take, since my experience in those amazing REA auctions usually consists of hitting my absolute max by Day Three, then it holds for a couple days, then just when I think it may miraculously hold and I'll win, I get whacked by the tails of the whales as my humble bid gets dwarfed. Then see the above post, and the aforementioned downward spiral, then by August I'm okay
But the catalogs are so well done I can almost feel the cards in hand when I page through them.
<< <i>Maurice,
That would be a trade-off I'd have to take, since my experience in those amazing REA auctions usually consists of hitting my absolute max by Day Three, then it holds for a couple days, then just when I think it may miraculously hold and I'll win, I get whacked by the tails of the whales as my humble bid gets dwarfed. Then see the above post, and the aforementioned downward spiral, then by August I'm okay
But the catalogs are so well done I can almost feel the cards in hand when I page through them. >>
Every time I think my collection is looking awesome I just open up that REA catalog and sigh! Always seems like my max bids get blown away early too!!
Like much of life, the REA auction is a very humbling and character-building experience.
<< <i> His main collection isn't cards though!! >>
I'm curious - what is his main collection?
<< <i>I'm curious - what is his main collection? >>
Memorabilia, including some controversial trophy balls.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/attorney-collector-corey-shanus-owner-new-jersey-auction-house-sold-counterfeit-items-article-1.108694