Classic baseball cards found in dead man's home

[ejp626]

Recent story listed on Sports Illustrated

Secret treasure

Classic baseball cards found in dead man's home

Posted: Thursday January 19, 2006 12:51PM; Updated: Thursday January 19, 2006 12:51PM

BOSTON (AP) -- Police were called to guard the condemned home of a reclusive man whose death led to the discovery of a valuable collection of vintage sports cards.

The collection, stored in 400 to 500 boxes in John F. Hessian's home in Boston's Roslindale section, included cards of such long-ago baseball stars as Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. Hessian also had football and hockey cards dating to the 1940s in a collection police estimate could be worth up to $1 million.

"This is like Fort Knox inside," said Michael Wiseman of Aftermath Cleaning Co., which was hired to tear through piles of trash 6-feet high to reach the cards.

Hessian, 83, lived alone in the home his entire life, until a neighbor discovered him dead there on Jan. 2.

Four truckloads of the cards were removed from the house last week. Hessian also had some valuable cards stored in a safe deposit box in an unknown location.

Hessian is survived by two cousins who are left to hunt for a will or determine who inherits the card collection.

The last sentence sounds a lot like the set-up to either a farce or a tragedy. For a movie with more than a bit of both, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue Part 10 deals with two brothers who have to decide how to split up their father's priceless stamp collection. At least once in your life, you need to see the entire series.

[Randy Twizzle]

The collection, stored in 400 to 500 boxes in John F. Hessian's home in Boston's Roslindale section, included cards of such long-ago baseball stars as Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente.

Maybe I'm showing my age, but "long-ago baseball stars" should mean Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb etc. not Mickey, Willie and Roberto.

[.:.impossible]

Who knows. 400 or 500 boxes could turn up one of these babies.

[Dave James]

For those not in the know, the card Impossible posted is that of Honus Wagner, a Hall of Famer who played for he Pittsburg Pirates. It is THE most valuable sports card ever printed. The reason for this is that Mr. Wagner, who was a virulent anti-tobacconist, asked that his card be withdrawn from circulation and destroyed because it had been issued by a cigarette company. There are only 3-4 of these known to exist. If I recall correctly, Bruce McNall, who used to own the Los Angeles Kings hockey club and Wayne Gretzky, who played there, bought one of them for something like $750,000. That was at least 10 years ago. I'd have to think this baby, by itself, would be worth over a million by now.

WOW! What a find.

Up over and out.

[Quincy]

For those not in the know, the card Impossible posted is that of Honus Wagner, a Hall of Famer who played for he Pittsburg Pirates. It is THE most valuable sports card ever printed. The reason for this is that Mr. Wagner, who was a virulent anti-tobacconist, asked that his card be withdrawn from circulation and destroyed because it had been issued by a cigarette company. There are only 3-4 of these known to exist. If I recall correctly, Bruce McNall, who used to own the Los Angeles Kings hockey club and Wayne Gretzky, who played there, bought one of them for something like $750,000. That was at least 10 years ago. I'd have to think this baby, by itself, would be worth over a million by now.

WOW! What a find.

Up over and out.

Wagner may not have been anti-tobacco but against not getting paid an amount to his satisfaction for appearing on the card. He had been featured on another set of cigar cards 10 years earlier and also on cigar boxes. He also chewed tobacco at least for part of his career. Aside from being skilled on the field he apparently had a good mind for the business of the game.

[Hardbopjazz]

My mother threw out my stash of baseball cards. After I moved out in 1991 I went back later on to get them. She told me she thought I didn't want them anymore so she tossed them in the trash. I don't think I had a million dollars worth of valuable cards like this guy, but rookie card of Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson to name just three would have been worth something.

[JSngry]

How come nobody names their kids "Honus"?

I'm thinking that "Honus Ray" would be a badass name to lay on a kid.

"Hone Ray" would not be somebody to trifle with!

[JSngry]

Or "Honess" if it's a girl.

"Honess Alphasia", it's got a ring to it.

But then again, she'd run the risk of being called "Your Royal Honess", and that could cause problems.

So forget about that!

[Randy Twizzle]

Here's some more basball card news

Mother Throws Away Son's Baseball-Card Collection As Required By Narrative Convention

January 18, 2006 | Onion Sports

NEW HAVEN, CT—With her son Jason safely away at college, Janet Pinsky fulfilled the traditional custom of any suburban mother by throwing away her son's baseball-card collection without asking his permission. "Lord knows I didn't want to just toss seven years and over 1,300 cards—including the '86 Topps Traded Barry Bonds rookie, the rare limited-edition Michael Jordan Upper Deck, and the '91 Donruss Signature Series Ripken with hologram border—into the trash, but I have certain obligations as a middle-class-mother archetype," said Pinsky, who years earlier was helpless to do anything but disapprove of Jason's first girlfriend even though she seemed like a perfectly sweet girl, and whose own mother had no choice but to give away her brother's 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie. "It's a shame I had to get rid of them—some of those cards would have been worth a lot of money someday." In keeping with the convention, Pinsky will remain silent on the issue until Alex Rodriguez hits his 800th home run 10 years from now, at which point she will inform her excited son that the cards were taking up too much room in the basement and that he hadn't played with them in years, anyway.

[Hardbopjazz]

Here's some more basball card news

Mother Throws Away Son's Baseball-Card Collection As Required By Narrative Convention

January 18, 2006 | Onion Sports

NEW HAVEN, CT—With her son Jason safely away at college, Janet Pinsky fulfilled the traditional custom of any suburban mother by throwing away her son's baseball-card collection without asking his permission. "Lord knows I didn't want to just toss seven years and over 1,300 cards—including the '86 Topps Traded Barry Bonds rookie, the rare limited-edition Michael Jordan Upper Deck, and the '91 Donruss Signature Series Ripken with hologram border—into the trash, but I have certain obligations as a middle-class-mother archetype," said Pinsky, who years earlier was helpless to do anything but disapprove of Jason's first girlfriend even though she seemed like a perfectly sweet girl, and whose own mother had no choice but to give away her brother's 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie. "It's a shame I had to get rid of them—some of those cards would have been worth a lot of money someday." In keeping with the convention, Pinsky will remain silent on the issue until Alex Rodriguez hits his 800th home run 10 years from now, at which point she will inform her excited son that the cards were taking up too much room in the basement and that he hadn't played with them in years, anyway.

Ouch!. Been there.

[ValerieB]

My mother threw out my stash of baseball cards. After I moved out in 1991 I went back later on to get them. She told me she thought I didn't want them anymore so she tossed them in the trash. I don't think I had a million dollars worth of valuable cards like this guy, but rookie card of Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson to name just three would have been worth something.

i have a very similar story. i think my mother gave my entire collection to a cleaning woman who worked for us only occasionally. my cards were from the mid-'50s. i also had program books, sporting news issues, baseball magazines and, last but not least, an autographed ball from ted williams, another from mickey mantle and another from pitcher, herb score after his scoreless game.

[clifford_thornton]

Shit, most of my record collection is stored with my parents while I'm in Austin...

[Jazzmoose]

Shit, most of my record collection is stored with my parents while I'm in Austin...

Not to be mister spelling police, but you misspelled "was"...

[connoisseur series500]

I came back from Asia 11 years later to discover that my parents had tossed my painstaking collection of 1,500+ handwritten scores of grandmaster chess games from the 19th century to Bobby Fischer. I had laboriously copied them for years as a kid, and went over the games.

They aren't worth crap today!

But it hurt in some vague way. I wanted to hang on to them as a testimony to teenaged monomania and studiousness.

Maybe it was a good thing she threw away the evidence.

[ghost of miles]

Wagner card goes for $2.3 million

[ghost of miles]

Gag card shows Jeter, Mantle, Bush

NEW YORK - As President Bush smiled and waved from the stands and Mickey Mantle looked on from the dugout, Derek Jeter swung his bat.

Talk about pressure. Luckily, the game never happened. It was just someone's idea of a visual gag — pulled off in a recent Topps baseball card through digital manipulation.

"Somewhere in between the final proofing and its printing, someone at our company — and we won't name names — thought it would be funny to put in Bush and Mantle," said Clay Luraschi, a spokesman for Topps in Tuesday's edition of the Daily News.

The president's image is superimposed on the picture, while whoever played the trick took some time blending Mantle into the background of Jeter's card, No. 40 in the set.

Luraschi said that the gag was discovered during proofing of the card, but that it was already in the set. "We couldn't do anything but laugh," he said.

It's not the first card to have silly errors or odd prints, said T.S. O'Connell, the editor of Sports Collector's Digest. "For collectors, there's a real giggle factor for something like this," he said.

The Jeter card could join other famed oddball cards, like the 1969 Topps of Aurelio Rodriguez. That card featured a photo of a bat boy instead of the infielder.

Another collector said the joke would raise the price of the card, which currently goes for $2 on eBay.

Jeter told the News said he didn't know anything about the card. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Luraschi said he doesn't know whether the card would be corrected in the future.

[Jim R]

Wagner card goes for $2.3 million

Loved the automated ads that followed:

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[Randy Twizzle]

Here's the Jeter card as shown in the NY Daily News

[ghost of miles]

A friend told me about this one:

Billy Ripken 1989 card

[ghost of miles]

My dad sent me this link in an e-mail--believe it or not, I had all of these cards at one time or another:

10 pleasingly hideous baseball cards from the 1970s

[Dan Gould]

Wagner card goes for $2.3 million

Loved the automated ads that followed:

"Sponsor Results

Honus Wagner Baseball Card

Shop for great deals on these and millions of other products. We offer fast shipping and secure shopping on all fan gear and sports collectibles.

www.monstermarketplace.com

Honus Wagner Baseball Card

Compare prices, read reviews and more. Yahoo! Shopping. Find sporting goods from over 100,000 stores.

shopping.yahoo.com"

Are you looking for Honus Wagner?

Find Honus Wagner Here

[Quincy]

My dad sent me this link in an e-mail--believe it or not, I had all of these cards at one time or another:

10 pleasingly hideous baseball cards from the 1970s

A better one of Oscar, at least for showing his 'fro along with a painted cap. I still have my cards from the '70s.

[ghost of miles]

I was a big Fred Lynn fan as a kid (yes, Dan, part of my "Bosox-are-my-favorite-team-after-the-Yanks" heresy ) and really treasured this one--can't remember if Topps did these composite-rookie cards any other year besides '75 or not:

...saw Armbrister play for the Indianapolis Indians a few times when I was a kid. Indpls was Cincy's farm team during the Big Red Machine years, so Cincy's annual visit to play their Triple AAA counterparts was always a big deal... Bench, Rose, Morgan et al usually played for the first 2-3 innings.

Edited April 13, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Brad]

I used to collect cards and had several of the Ripken cards which I sold off when they were hot. I still have one. Today they're not worth that much.

Baseball card market has dropped through the floor due to massive oversupply.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I still cringe when I think back to when my mother burned a neighbor's son's baseball card collection. He was killed in Vietnam and his mother couldn't handle cleaning out his room. My mom did it and rather than give the old cards to her 3 sons. She burned them all in a trash barrel in the side yard. She said she didn't think we would have wanted a bunch of cards with all old baseball players on them. Yeah Mom, I would never want an old Ted Williams baseball card.

Edited April 13, 2010 by Kevin Bresnahan