Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
  eNews Issue #99 (July 2012)         www.oldcardboard.com

Please Note: If images are not loading in this email, click here. Welcome to Old Cardboard, the most complete reference resource for information about collecting vintage baseball cards and related memorabilia.  More information about this eNewsletter and its companion website and magazine are found at the bottom of this page. Contents: 1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar 2. Tribute to Sports Artist LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) 3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website 4. Attic Discovery Grabs National Mainstream Attention 5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings) 1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar The following is a summary of vintage card events coming up in the next 30-45 days. For the most current listings on additional vintage card shows and auctions, see the Key Events Calendar on the Old Cardboard website.

OC eNewsletter Sponsor

July 2012
17-19	Phone/Internet	Hake's Americana & Collectibles Auction (includes baseball; see website).
25	Phone/Internet	SCP Auctions (see website for details).
25-26	Phone/Internet	Clean Sweep Auctions (autograph & memorabilia; see website for details).
26	Phone/Internet	Greg Bussineau Sports Rarities Auction (see website for details).
26	Phone/Internet	Collectible Classics Auction (see website for details).
August 2012
1-5	Baltimore, MD	National Sports Collectors Convention (see website for details).
2	Baltimore, MD	Heritage Sports Collectibles Auction at the National (see website for details).
3	Baltimore, MD	Legendary Live Auction at the National (see website for details).
9	Phone/Internet	CollectAuctions.com Auction (see website for details).
9	Phone/Internet	Huggins and Scott Auction (see website for details).
9	Internet	Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
16-18	Phone/Internet	Heritage Signature Sports Collectibles Auction (see website for details).
18	Phone/Internet	Memory Lane Auction (see website for details).
30-31	Phone/Internet	Legendary Auctions (see website for details).

2. Tribute to Sports Artist LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) Neiman Self Portrait LeRoy Neiman, considered by many to be the foremost sports artist of all time, died last month at the age of 91. His unique artwork, however, will live forever. Subjects for Neiman's brilliantly colored, impressionistic art over the past half-century have ranged from Playboy bunnies to Bengal tigers as well as a wide range of sports personalities and events from boxing to baseball. Neiman's highly illustrated book, This Great Game, released in 1971 by Prentice-Hall, is focused on baseball and remains a classic of coffee table eye candy. Beginning in the early 1960s, Neiman traveled the world observing and painting leisure life, social activities and major athletic competitions. These included several of the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Kentucky Derby, championship boxing, along with PGA and The Masters golf tournaments. Nolan Ryan Throughout his life, Neiman sponsored and supported several organizations that foster art activities for underprivileged children. These include the LeRoy Neiman Center for Youth in San Francisco and the Arts Horizons LeRoy Neiman Art Center in Harlem. He also established the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University in New York and scholarships at his Alma Mater, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Along the way, he authored twelve books featuring his artwork, including This Great Game. Neiman was born LeRoy Leslie Runquist on June 8, 1921 in Braham, Minnesota. His father deserted his family when LeRoy was very young. When his mother married his stepfather, John L. Niman (Neiman) in 1926, LeRoy changed to the new surname as well. In 1957, Neiman married Janet Byrne. They lived in New York City, their home base for over four decades, until Neiman's death. Their residence, inside a New York City landmark originally intended for painters, is made up of double-height rooms that overlook Central Park. Norman Rockwell once lived there, as well as celebrities Rudolph Valentino and former mayor John Lindsay. In This Great Game, Neiman contributed a dozen paintings of leading baseball players--each presented in a two-page layout. While mostly a photographic gallery, the book also featured narratives by leading writers of the period. The subject players are: Aaron, Clemente, Gibson, Howard, Kaline, Killebrew, Marichal, Mays, B. Robinson, F. Robinson, Rose and Yastrzemski, Two of the originals of the artwork for This Great Game are scheduled for sale at Legendary Auction's August 3 live auction to coincide with the National Sports Collectors Convention next month in Baltimore. Both of the oil-on-board originals are shown below. Hank Aaron (from "This Great Game") Willie Mays (from "This Great Game") A prolific and highly successful artist, Neiman is said to have produced about six different serigraph subjects a year over much of his career. Numbered copies of these have generally sold from $3,000 to $6,000 each. Gross annual sales of new serigraphs alone are said to have exceeded $10 million in recent years. Some originals, such as "Strech Stampede," a mammoth 1975 oil painting of the Kentucky Derby, are reported to have sold for up to $500,000. Each of the 20-1/2 by 31-1/2 inch originals shown above is estimated to sell in the $80,000 to $100,000 range. (Editor's Note: At a more personal level, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Neiman in 1970 as he was assemblying the artwork for illustrating "This Great Game." The event was the annual Christmas party of the baseball Commissioner's office and held at Toots Shor's restaurant in mid-town Manhattan. Held more than 40 years ago, it was a memorable evening made even more so by Neiman. May he rest in peace. --LJH) OC eNewsletter Sponsor 3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website We are continually expanding the Old Cardboard website with more set profiles, checklists and card galleries. Recent (past 30-40 days) additions include: Set Checklists have been added for: 1910   Washington Times Set Galleries have been added for: 1910   Washington Times Updating the website with checklists and full set galleries for additional vintage sets is an ongoing project, so check back often to check out the latest additions. There are now many thousands of card images on the website and the list continues to grow. We welcome and encourage feedback with checklist additions, card images, error corrections and suggestions. Please send all input to editor@oldcardboard.com. In addition to these additions to the Old Cardboard website, we continue to expand and refine our eBay Custom Search Links to make finding vintage baseball cards on eBay easier than ever. The results of these searches are continuously changing, so check back often to find the most recent listings. 4. Attic Discovery Grabs National Mainstream Attention E98 Wagner from "Black Swamp" Find The recent discovery of a treasure trove of more than 700 E98 "Set of 30" vintage baseball cards has amazed not only vintage collectors. After being picked up by the Associated Press and numerous news organizations, the news was featured last week on the NBC News "Today Show" and thus placed in the national spotlight. As a result, the discovery has sent members of many families to their attics in hopes of uncovering a similar find. The pristine cards were found in the attic of a home in Defiance, Ohio. They were discovered by descendents of a meat market owner who likely put them there more than a century ago. The massive group has been dubbed the "Black Swamp Find" in reference to the area in Ohio where they were discovered. According to Karl Kissner, speaking on behalf of twenty cousins that will share in the inheritance of the cards, the cards were originally owned by their grandfather, Carl Hench, who died in the 1940s. Details of how Carl Hench acquired the cards is currently unknown. He ran a meat market in Defiance and family members believe they were given to him perhaps as part of a promotion for his business. The cards show virtually no signs of handling and even today exhibit bright white borders. Beyond doubt, they include the highest graded examples known in the hobby. The house was occupied by two of Henches daughters for many years. When daughter Jean Hench died last year, she left its contents to her 20 newphews and nieces, who later discovered the cards. Kissner and cousin Karla Hench spoke with Today Show's Matt Lauer last week along with Chris Ivy of Heritage Auctions, who is consigned to sell the cards for the owners. The 3-1/2 minute interview provides details about how the cards were found. It can be viewed below. Although E98 cards are known in the hobby to be printed and distributed somewhat evenly with red, green, blue and orange backgrounds, Ivy told Old Cardboard that "The lions share of the newly found cards exhibit red backgrounds." According to Ivy, there were a few cards with green or orange backgrounds. Strangly, none were found with blue backgrounds. It is also interesing to note that, according to Ivy, the cards had been organized into packets with a packet for each player/background-color combination held together by twine. The discovery’s most desirable cards will be offered in an auction of high-end sports memorabilia conducted by Heritage Auctions during the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore. Additional cards will be offered by the auction company in the coming months. It is estimated that total revenue for all the cards in the discovery could surpass $3 million. 5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings) Memory Lane to Open Auction on Eve of "National." On the eve of the opening of the National Sports Collectors Convention on August 1 in Baltimore, West Coast auctioneer Memory Lane plans to raise the curtain on what it believes may be its best catalog auction yet. The 1300-item auction is highlighed by 13-pages in its catalog that are devoted exclusively to Babe Ruth cards and memorabilia. These include two of Ruth's earliest cards--a 1916 Sporting News graded PSA4, and a scarce 1916 Famous and Barr card graded SGC10. Other standouts include a Ruth-signed glove and a 1933 Yankees team-signed bat. Many of the items in the auction will be available for preview at the upcoming National Sports Collectors Convention in Ruth's home town of Baltimore. The auction closes August 18 and can be viewed online on the Memory Lane website. See you at the "NSCC." Brett and I look forward to visiting with our collector friends at the National Sports Collectors Convention next week in Baltimore. We will both have our cell phones, so please give us a call from the convention floor so we can take a breather from the rigors of walking the floor to visit with old friends and meet new ones. Our numbers are 512-466-5358 (Lyman) and 512-466-5372 (Brett). Hope to see you there. To get into the rhythm of the event, you may want to take a look at a video that we produced last time we were at the Baltimore show. It can be viewed, along with the identity of about 75 vintage collectors interviewed in the video, in the Old Cardboard August 2010 eNewsletter (eNews #76). Lyman and Brett Hardeman Old Cardboard, LLC. Old Cardboard, LLC. was established in December 2003, to help bring information on vintage baseball card collecting to the hobbyist.  Produced by collectors for collectors, this comprehensive resource consists of three components: (1) Old Cardboard Magazine, (2) a companion website at www.oldcardboard.com and (3) this eNewsletter. The Old Cardboard website contains more than 500 pages of descriptive reference information for baseball card sets produced fifty years ago or longer.  Each of these set summaries has a direct set-specific link to auctions and a similar link to 's powerful search engine for further research.  The website also includes a Show and Auction Calendar, an eBay Top 50 Vintage Sellers List, and much more.  As a result, the Old Cardboard website makes a great "Alt-tab" companion for vintage card shoppers and researchers.  Old Cardboard eNews provides current hobby news, upcoming shows and auctions, and updates to the website and the magazine.  It is published around the middle of each month.  For a FREE subscription to the eNewsletter, or for subscription information on Old Cardboard Magazine, please visit the website at www.oldcardboard.com.  If you find this information resource helpful, please tell your friends.  We need your support and your feedback. Thank you.