Pre-War GU - who else do you want to see?

The pre-war GU market is one that is for the most part, pretty dry. A card shows up here and there but for instance if you wanted say a Napoleon Lajoie bat, you would have to wait a month or two to see a Topps Tribute or Triple Threads copy appear.

Enter 2012 National Treasures - there are literally 30 Lajoie bat cards on eBay at auction at any given time. So it's rekindled interest for many collectors (including myself) in looking at pre-war GU.

In addition to a guy like Lajoie who was hard to find you now have Willie Keeler GU for the first time ever...which begs the question...what other GU would you want to see?

I'll start:

Walter Johnson - more of him
Cy Young - none out there to my knowledge
Christy Mathewson - he has the pants cards and that's it to my knowledge
Rube Waddell
Amos Rusie
Cap Anson
Abner Doubleday
Connie Mack
Three Finger Brown
Chief Bender
Tim Keefe

Who else would you add to the list?

Addie Joss

jbhofmann said:

Addie Joss

Click to expand...

He's such an interesting story - Addie Joss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If a company could find an item like - Lot Detail - Addie Joss Circa 1909 Cleveland Indians Game Used Pants - that would seem to be a slam dunk at that price.

The Walter Johnson cards are from a ball. Not exactly the same thing as a jersey or bat, so that's still on my list.

I used to collect HOF GU cards, and was fairly close to getting one of each that was available until a couple years ago, but I stopped for 2 reasons. First, I'm not sure I like the idea of these items being chopped, especially deadball guys. How many could there really be? And even if I never owned, saw, or was even aware of their existence, I think it'd be better for the hobby if they didn't cut up any more pieces from guys like Johnson, Mathewson, Waddell, etc. I'd like to own a copy of such cards, but I never equated owning a tiny sliver of material with being part of a conglomerate of owners of the whole thing or whatever. "Getting a piece" is not the same, not as good as the whole thing being intact somewhere for truly historic items.

Second is I'm becoming increasingly unconvinced of the material. It's always been taken on faith that these things are what the companies say they are, despite no proof whatsoever. Taking NT for instance, where did they acquire all these items? Private sales are one thing, but they could be forthcoming about provenance. And auctions should be publicized since that provenance is already assumed. There's a million questions to be asked with these things, and for the first 15 years or so not getting the answers didn't bother me. Now it's starting to.

All that said, a Connie Mack game-worn suit card would be pretty nice.

Ha, ha, ha at Doubleday Game Used. The man may have never even played a game.

I'll say William "Candy" Cummings, Mike "King" Kelly and Walter "Rabbit" Maranville. Oh, and find me a Fleetwood Moses Walker GU item too.

smapdi said:

The Walter Johnson cards are from a ball. Not exactly the same thing as a jersey or bat, so that's still on my list.


Second is I'm becoming increasingly unconvinced of the material. It's always been taken on faith that these things are what the companies say they are, despite no proof whatsoever. Taking NT for instance, where did they acquire all these items? Private sales are one thing, but they could be forthcoming about provenance. And auctions should be publicized since that provenance is already assumed. There's a million questions to be asked with these things, and for the first 15 years or so not getting the answers didn't bother me. Now it's starting to.

All that said, a Connie Mack game-worn suit card would be pretty nice.

Click to expand...

Don't you think in many cases this is kind of like UD Ultimate where they just used up much of what they had in inventory?

Outside of Keeler and perhaps a couple of others they've had all these subjects in past products with relatively low print runs so coming up with a few more bat slivers of a guy like Honus Wagner isn't too difficult.

gracecollector said:

Ha, ha, ha at Doubleday Game Used. The man may have never even played a game.

I'll say William "Candy" Cummings, Mike "King" Kelly and Walter "Rabbit" Maranville.

Click to expand...

Mike Kelly...yes absolutely. Wasn't Maranville in one of those t206 series at some point? Maybe he wasn't.


As a point of interest, Keeler who is the "new" guy to this set seems to have quite a few bats on the market and they are more affordable than I would have thought: Lot 195. Wee Willie Keeler 1909-1925 Game Used Bat ~ Baseball Equipment < Sports < June 2010 Catalog - Lelands

Not that $11K is cheap but when making a product like National Treasures...it's not expensive either.

masonphillip said:

Mike Kelly...yes absolutely. Wasn't Maranville in one of those t206 series at some point? Maybe he wasn't.

Click to expand...

Maranville has no GU, only cut autos.

In my opinion, there's no way all that 2012 National Treasures material is legit. The wording is vague, some is old-timer game and coaching uniforms. Some I doubt is even that. To me, that's not GU.

gracecollector said:

Maranville has no GU, only cut autos.

In my opinion, there's no way all that 2012 National Treasures material is legit. The wording is vague, some is old-timer game and coaching uniforms. Some I doubt is even that. To me, that's not GU.

Click to expand...

I agree if that's what it is, it's not GU.

That said, given the fact that in many cases it's not REALLY that expensive to obtain some of these items I don't see why it couldn't be GU

Doesn't Cy Young have some in Sweet Spot Classic or UD Epic?

A_Pharis said:

Doesn't Cy Young have some in Sweet Spot Classic or UD Epic?

Click to expand...

I don't believe so but I could be wrong.

masonphillip said:

I don't believe so but I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Well, damn.

Chief Bender!

I'd like to see some GU from him.

With the GU market being as sketchy as it already is, delving into pre-war GU would make me pretty nervous as a collector. Many times, you could purchase a card from that player's era for less than their questionable GU modern card. For me it's a no brainer. I'd rather have the vintage cardboard.

I forgot Al Spalding and Billy Sunday for my wishlist. And a quad GU card of Chicago's "Stonewall" Infield of Cap Anson, Fred Pfeffer, Ned Williamson, and Tom Burns. Man, that would be sweet!

gracecollector said:

I forgot Al Spalding and Billy Sunday for my wishlist. And a quad GU card of Chicago's "Stonewall" Infield of Cap Anson, Fred Pfeffer, Ned Williamson, and Tom Burns. Man, that would be sweet!

Click to expand...

Oh man...that'd be pretty cool!

Although it'd be rough to cut up something like this http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7024&lotIdNo=13004