What A Find

As the year comes quickly to a close I started to wonder if any new finds might pop up. Well, no sooner said than done, we get a one-of-a-kind find of a 1893 Baseball card. Actually, it was originally found in the 90's, but remained unknown to hobby experts until recently.

One afternoon, Mike Gazo went to work on his Moms bathroom. A typical remodel job for a do-it-yourself handyman. As he tore down the walls he discovered something unusual. The above Just So Tobacco card of Hall of Famer Buck Ewing was nailed to a crossbeam. It was an unusual find for the casual collector that he was. He had no idea what it was or knew who this person was staring back at him. He took it home and casually showed off to friends for over a decade.

"I just thought it was a cool card," he recalled. "I wasn't much for the internet back then so I just took it around. Had it in the glove box of my car. I showed it to a few local collector friends and some dealers but they didn't seem to know much about it. They thought it might be worth $100 or so. I kept it in my sock drawer. Sometimes it sat on my coffee table. My friends who collected when I did used to be amazed when we ran across something like a 1960 Willie Mays. We never had any tobacco cards."

Little did he know that he found an extreme rarity hobby experts wondered even existed. The Just So Tobacco set is one of the scarcest ones around. Only discovered in the 60's, few examples have lasted the test of time.

Mike's card is an original and this particular player had never been seen before. Only 15 different cards are known (now 16), and it is believed more exist. Most cards have only a single example. Unfortunately, a complete checklist may never be known. It will be auctioned next year in REA's next auction and may reach into the high five figures. Click the below links for even more detail on this incredible find.

Source Story: SCD & Lemke: