Articles
January, 2005
Bob Ikins
I first met Bob Ikins in the year 2000, though I had known him for at least 8 years (according to my computer sales) prior to that, and it was probably several more. In 1995 when I was planning to move to Arizona from Long Island I decided to sell some of my items that I felt wouldn't "move well". One item was a complete run of the Baseball Magazine which I advertised and Bob bought. Over the years we became much closer as Bob researched the Baseball Magazine photos (M113 and M114) and I sent him the research material I had done and the efforts of others.
In 2000, Bob called me and told me he was planning a golf trip to Arizona a trip to the West Coast to see his daughter, and would like to bring me "some" items for my auction. Bob arrived with one of those old time cars that had a trunk that went on forever. It was filled with cards, book,s, other publications, including many I wish he had not brought. but he did and it was sold. We kept contact and Bob called again in late 2003 and said he wanted to make a similar trip. This time though, sadly, Bob told me he had cancer and was given a year to two to live. He wanted me to sell his collection and would drive a part of it out to Arizona with a friend and his golf clubs and would drop the collection off, play some golf and head back. He wanted to hold on to the bulk of the collection as long as he could. These items were sold in our April 2004 auction and afterwards Bob and I talked about the balance of the collection and it was picked up on our way east in June and prepared for auction. Sadly, Bob died in November, 2004.
March 1, 2003
To our many friends and customers,
Please find among these pages our April "Boston Beaneater" Auction, so named for a group of Cabinets included in the auction which we’ll discuss shortly. While our first post Don McPherson Collection auction lacks the awe those auctions brought we think there’s some pretty exciting items and consignments in this one. Note this is the first auction, we’ve had all the lots on our web page and if you double click any photo you should get a good clear enlargement as well as the lot writeup. We had some problems with the on-line photos in our last auction and we apologize for that. Also note that we’ve added a link for our eBay address on the home page, where we’ve started adding items regularly. There are items there now and will be up until two weeks before the auction and two weeks after. Other times, you should find a variety of items including baseball cards, baseball postcards, autographs, golf items and various items that have been in our garage for years. Might be worth a look.
David McGahey was a friend and collection from the San Francisco Bay area. He passed away in March of last year. We knew him first when he was the Vice president of broadcasting for the Golden State Warriors. David grew up in the Philadelphia area and moved to San Francisco in 1974. His professional career carried him to Sales management positions at major radio stations and progressed to developing sales and merchandising programs for Broadcast with the Oakland A’s and University of Stanford among others. He retired in 1997. His collecting interests varied from all sports to theatre, ballet and travel. He obviously met many interesting and visible personalities and many of the autographs were acquired in person. The items that were his are as follows: 51, 56-7, 60, 66, 181-2, 259, 269, 272, 275, 277-8, 280-5, 287-9, 301, 307-9, 311-314 and 317.
Perhaps the nicest group of items in the auction came from an old ballplayer named Jouett Meekin (see lot 17), Meekin was a member of the 1899 National League Boston Team and he had 12 Imperial Cabinets of that team. I’ve been doing this for 24 years now and have researched and collected 19th Century items almost all that time and I’ve never seen anything as spectacular as these. I recall a group of individual Boston Players league Cabinets from 1890, a group of 1891 Boston American Association Cabinets and some Baltimore studios from 1894. All of these were standard size, not the imperial size of the 1899 Boston Beaneaters. That there are 12 of them, including 4 Hall of Famers, is nothing less than remarkable. Its also interesting to note that these were made near the end of what was considered the "cabinet" era, where photos were attached to mounting boards. After some discussion, they are being offered in 8 lots, so more collectors can participate in the auction. There’s also an extended story on these cabinets in the March 2003 issue of BECKETT VINTAGE SPORTS COLLECTIBLES.
Another old ballplayer involved in our auction is Casey Stengel. We have a group of items that while they didn’t come directly from Casey, are the next best thing. Casey had a lifelong friend, Harold Letterman, who Casey grew up with and knew all his life. Letterman’s parents, noting his love for the game, paid Casey’s way through Baseball School. Letterman, who became a successful business man on his own, shared Casey’s love for the game, was a recipient of autographed baseballs throughout Casey’s career and an attendee at many World Series games. The Stengel, or more accurately, the "Letterman" collection is offered in Lots 68-80, 242 and 255-8.
Many other great items can be found throughout the auction. One of our personal favorites can be found in the Golf section. The final leg of Bobby Jones’ Grand Slam in 1930 was accomplished at the Merion Cricket Club outside of Philadelphia. The very rare program for that historic event is offered in Lot 296. Other fine golf items are present.
Where are you going to find a group of 8 large Gypsy Queens? Or a group of 25 N321 S.F. Hess’. Even if the condition is less than one might hope for, they’re spectacular groups and they will be much more affordable. You’ll find a couple of highlight items in better condition with a large Kalamazoo Bat of the Pittsburgh team and a Just So of Ed McKean.
There’s much to round out the auction, a nice PCL section, a good autograph section, our usual fine selection of types, sets, card groups, exhibits, post cards, press pins, celluloid pins, tickets, display items, other sports and non-sports.
Please read our rules, there’s a couple of changes, one specifically relating to buying cards to be graded. In short, we do not defer to the opinion of a grading company. For now, that’s as nicely as we can put it. A stronger opinion will be offered some time in the future. Also please note, as we assume you have, this auction is only one day. Our most asked question is "when will the auction end?". The answer is still we don’t know and we point out we’ve never gone past 10 P.M. MST and we doubt we will this time althought the possibility is greater with this auction. Our advice remains the same- bid early and don’t assume we’ll be here at 11 P.M. Its extremely unlikely.
Finally, a few personal items. On the preceding page, you’ll find a copy of an ad we ran recently in SCD. It delineates reasons why we think we’re a competitive choice for your consignments and in fact when it comes to older cards, there’s no one better. We hope you’ll consider us for your consignments. Thinking further, along these lines, for the seventh consecutive year we’ll be driving cross country this summer and as in the past we’ll be stopping to pick up collections or better individual items. Our Current plans should bring us in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas Virginia and Washington. If you think it would be mutually advantageous for us to stop, please give me a call.
Finally, good luck in the auction.
Carefree, AZ, September 1, 2001
Memories of Don McPherson
Don McPherson, my friend, neighbor, fellow collector and mentor, died in late April of 2001. Most collectors today didn't know Don, even though he collected for over 65 years. Many of us remember collecting Topps and Bowman cards out of the packs in the 50's and after. Don did that, and he also collected Goudeys, George Millers, Playballs, and more out of the packs, and Exhibits out of the machines. He was a giant in collecting. If there were a collecting Hall of Fame, he would be surely be an early inductee.
Don was born in November of 1921. He was married for 55 years to his wife, Marge, and he left two daughters, Linda and Margie. He attended Ohio State, where he received both an undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy. He had a distinguished career in the Navy (Lt. jg) and as a Vice President at Kaiser Aluminum. Later on he served on a Ronald Reagan Committee to research metals for arms. He was a specialist in Titanium.
Included among his collecting friends were Buck Barker, with who he researched much of the information that the hobby finds commonplace today, and Edward Wharton-Tigar, the famed British collector, whose incomparable worldwide tobacco collection is displayed in the British Museum. Don is responsible for researching the names, biographical information and teams for all the N172 Old Judges listed in Wharton-Tigar's World Tobacco Index, the monumental work published by the British Cartophilic Society. That listing is the basis for the Old Judge listings in my own Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, The Krause Standard Catalog and Beckett's Almanac. Don was instrumental to the Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards, spending countless hours in front on xerox machines making copies of card sets for the research.
I knew Don for over 20 years. After some early correspondence, I met him at his home in Lafayette, California, in 1981. I first started collecting Old Judges then and that was what first brought us together. Don brought me into his "collecting room" and I asked to see his Old Judges. I was handed two loose leaf books filled with 16 pocket sheets. I had my own Old Judges in less functional 18 pocket sheets because some Old Judges, mostly the 1889's, didn't fit in 16 pocket sheets. I asked "How did you get all these to fit?" Don answered, matter of factly, " I cut 'em.".I was speechless. Monetary value on baseball cards was of no importance to Don. It was a card of an obscure baseball player and that was what was important.
Don's collection was entirely baseball. The only exception was National Chicle Skybirds, which he collected in the thirties. While he sought to complete all sets (and succeeded on most), one of his primary interests was obtaining a photo, preferably a card, of every major league player. There were several sets he collected solely because they contained many obscure players. He had no real interest in completing them, just obtaining the players he wanted. The primary example was Zeenuts. Don had over 600 cards and I would guess every one played major league ball. Don contributed a lengthy four-part article to my Old Judge newsletter listing every Zeenut subject that played major league ball. It was the kind of project that Don worked meticulously on, in this case, with Buck Barker, and all the correspondence Don had with Buck was still neatly filed away in his desk drawer when he died.
His card collection, which he kept in an office at home, was massive. One wall was completely filled with sets in plastic pages in albums. The albums were all color-coordinated. The "R" cards were in red binders, 19th Century was in brown, the tobacco cards were in green, etc. When I first met Don, I noticed he had no T3's. I asked him why. "Too big, I don't like biggies" he said. The only exceptions were a group of W600's, W601's and M101-1's that showed obscure players that weren't on any other card.
Other acceptable "biggies" included a complete set of 1933 Goudey's in uncut sheets and the 1934 Goudey high number sheet with Lajoie. Don had his original letter to John Fawcett, who sold the remaining Goudey sheets in 1969 from the Goudey warehouse (in an ad). He only received six of the sheets from Fawcett (plus the Lajoie), according to his correspondence the last six sheets Fawcett had but a few years later filled in the set from Goody Goldfadden, another great hobby name. Sadly, all but the Lajoie sheets have disappeared, apparently having been sold some 10 years ago in a deal that defies explanation as Don rarely sold anything.
After Don retired, Marge and Don moved to the Pinnacle Peak area of Scottsdale, Arizona. His pet project became the attempt to acquire a photo of everyone who ever played major league ball. Early on he realized that fulfilling that ambition with cards would be impossible and he started branching out. If need be, a cabinet card was acceptable, or even a W601 Sporting Life Composite if it contained a player that was otherwise thought to be unobtainable. Don reveled in the collector issued sets that would contain obscure players, such as Mike Aronstein's fabulous run of collector sets that were issued when the hobby was in its infancy. Later on, Don loved the store issued sets such as Target issued for the Dodgers, which contained many photos of the players he looked for.
When hobby great Buck Barker died and I acquired his postcard collection, I shipped off the minor league team cards to Don and he told me that there was a good number with players he wanted. Don still had those cards with the names of the obscure players who played in the majors underlined right on the card. Later on, when Don got to the point where there were only about 600 major leaguers from 1876 on that he didn't have some kind of picture of, he bought a Xerox machine and starting making "Xerox cards" of each player using the best likeness of each player he could, and then added biographical information at the bottom in a white panel. Don would make his cards one letter of the alphabet at a time. He would pull all the "A"s out of whatever set he thought had the best picture of the player, be it a Topps card, a T206, an E107, an Old Judge, an exhibit, a Target card, a Bramac or an extracted head shot from a team card. I would walk in Don's house and ask him what letter he was up to, he would tell me, and I would see a pile of cards of that letter on his desk.
When the letter was complete and all the copies were made, Don would put each card back where it came from and start the next letter. Each player was made into a postcard-sized picture, enlarging the card as necessary. When the arduous process was complete, Don had compiled 13 3 inch loose-leaf books, with each book filled with pictures of players, four to a page, alphabetically arranged. It was an incredible undertaking that to the best of my knowledge, was never even approached before.
Of course, Don was not done. After his project was completed, he discovered a scanner could do a much better job than a copying machine and so, he started once again. Sadly, the revision was never completed. When Don died, there was a large pile of cards beginning with the letter "B" sitting on his office desk. What does exist is an extraordinary beginning for a publisher, perhaps the Hall of Fame, SABR or another baseball research organization.
He collected little that wasn't major league. There were no E99s or E100's, no T211 and only T210 Old Mill players who played major league ball and weren't in any other set. Don's collection was nothing less than phenomenal. He had from 250 to 300 sets, not counting collector issues. He was complete in Topps and Bowman, though no PCL as expected. He was complete in Goudeys including the Lajoie (in sheet form) and most other "R" issues. Exhibits were nearly complete as well as most of the Tobacco major league issues. He was only missing Wagner from T206, though he had the means and opportunity to buy it many times. One of Don's favorite sets was E107 because it was issued in a time of few card sets and it had so many of the players that couldn't be found elsewhere. Don nearly completed this "impossible" set, where none are known complete and his is the second largest holding. His collection will be sold in a series of three auctions to be listed in Sports Collectors Sigest October 2001, April 2002 and October 2002
Don was known to only a few collectors and dealers, but as news was passed of his death, even those who never crossed paths with Don said they had heard of him and had never heard a bad word. Don will be sorely missed, not only by his family and friends but also by those who enjoy the hobby and never knew him or recognized his contributions.
Carefree, AZ, March 1, 2001
Welcome to the revival of The
Old Judge. You'll find it here on our web page and we hope to
update it frequently with stories on cards,
updates to my previously published "Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards",
articles that were intended to be in future volumes of the
Encyclopedia that never got published at all, etc. I also want to use
this space for auction updates and news and any other topics that may
come up.
Before we get started- one last note. These articles are available
free to the hobby press to reprint as they see fit. Its all we ask is
that proper credit be given to me and the web page.
Lew Lipset
The Sports Champion Exhibits of 1948 and 1949
In 1948 and 1949 The Exhibit company of Chicago departed from
their succession of baseball issues to issue two 32 subject multiple
sport issues. Over the years these issues have proved to be
fascinating, popular and challenging to collectors.
The 1948 issue is for the most part the easier of the two issues.
Issued in black and white the set features no baseball players, 10
football, 3 basketball, 2 hockey, curiously 4 ice skating, 2 bowling,
2 tennis and 9 assorted other sports. All of these cards were issued
in black and white although there is a green tinted variety for all
the cards which is identical except for the tint but much rarer.
In 1949, the Exhibit Company replaced 14 subjects and changed the
poses of two ice skaters, Dick Button and Barbara Scott. No one has
ever been able to offer a reason why. The new cards had a blue tint
and makes them easily distinguished from the earlier issue. The 1949
cards were also issued in smaller quantities and are rarer than the
earlier Black and whites and in the case of the new subjects carry a
good premium. Included in the changes is a card of the only golfer
in the set, Ben Hogan, and with the Tiger Woods led resurgence of
Golf collectibles has become the most valuable card in the set.
The checklist for the 1948 set is listed below. The subjects in
bold type were not repeated in the 1949 set. Two Ice Skaters, Dick
Button and Barbara Ann Scott, were in both sets, but with different
poses in 1949. The Checklist for 1949 follows with the new additions
being shown in bold type.
1948 Black & White/ Green
- Sam Baugh (football)
- Doug and Max Bentley
(hockey)
- Buddy Bomar
(bowling)
- Dick Button
( ice skating, black suit)
- John Cobb
(auto racing)
- Bob Cook
(basketball)
- Ann Curtis (Swimming)
- Jack Dempsey (boxing)
- Gil Dodds
(track)
- Bill Durnan
(hockey)
- Bump Elliott
(football)
- Otto Graham (football)
- Pat Harder (football)
- Sonja Henie (ice skating)
- Willie Hoppe (billiards)
- Jack Jacobs (football)
- Jack Kramer (tennis)
- Joe Louis (boxing)
- Sid Luckman (football)
- John Lujack (football)
- Man O War
(horse racing)
- Bobby McDermott
(basketball)
- George Mikan (basketball)
- Grethen
Merrill (ice skating)
- Dick Miles (table tennis)
- Bobby Riggs (tennis)
- Barbara Ann Scott
(ice skating, right leg up)
- Ben Sklar
(marbles)
- Bulldog Turner (football)
- Steve Van Buren (football)
- Andy Varipapa (bowling)
- Buddy Young
(football)
1949 — Blue Tint
- Sam Baugh (football)
- Dick Button
(ice skating, black & white outfit)
- Citation
(horse racing)
- Roy Conacher
(hockey)
- Ann Curtis (swimming)
- Jack Dempsey (boxing)
- Ned Day
(bowling)
- Harrison Dillard
(track)
- Glenn Dobbs
(football)
- Joe Fulks
(basketball)
- Otto Graham (football)
- Pat Harder (football)
- Sonja Henie (ice skating)
- Ben Hogan
(golf)
- Willie Hoppe (billiards)
- Jack Jacobs (football)
- Jack Kramer (tennis)
- Guy Lombardo
(speed boat)
- Joe Louis (boxing)
- Sid Luckman (football)
- John Lujack (football)
- Robert Mathias
(track)
- George Mikan (basketball)
- Dick Miles (table tennis)
- Marion Motley
(football)
- Andy Phillip
(basketball)
- Bobby Riggs (tennis)
- Barbara Ann Scott
(ice skating, both legs touching ice)
- Bulldog Turner (football)
- Steve Van Buren (football)
- Andy Varipapa (bowling)
- Bob Waterfield
(football)