The Post War Cards Newsletter #366

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Like REA’s auction recap last week, there was just too much cool stuff in Heritage’s August 21–23 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction to do it justice. I recommend you visit the auction’s archive, log off (so you can’t see the prices), and just appreciate the breadth and depth of the offering as a fan of the hobby.

Anywho, the big sale was obviously the 1909–11 T206 Piedmont Honus Wagner, which sold for $5,856,000. It’s one of just three known Piedmont-back variations of The Card.

But that wasn’t the only million-dollar item. Seven-figure sales also included the 1986 Diego Maradona historic “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” game-used soccer ball, which sold for $3,355,000; a PSA 8-graded 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle, which sold for $3,721,000; a PSA 9-graded 1933 Goudey #181 Babe Ruth, which sold for $1,525,000; a Sandy Koufax game worn jersey, which sold for $1,311,500; and a BGS 8.5-graded 2006 Fleer 1986 Fleer Jordan Buyback Auto, which sold for $1,204,750.

I’m still debating how to incorporate the T206 Wagner and ’52 Topps Mantle more deeply into my real-time hobby engine (PostWarCardsWire.com). I have a few options, but if you have any thoughts, please reach out.

What on earth do I write about next when there were six seven-figure, and over 100 six-figure items, among an auction that totaled over $62M? I guess I’ll share one unopened product, one uncut sheet, one Hobby Library item, and one item from The Topps Vault that intrigued me.

I’m a sucker for ’52 Topps, so I’ll go with one of the two unopened wax packs they had for sale, the 5th–6th Series pack that sold for $94,550. There’s solid provenance for the pack, but that’s the sort of information I hold back for Monday’s Unopened Market Reports.

There weren’t too many uncut sheets in this offering, but one you probably won’t see again for a while is the 1994 Bumble Bee Miami Hurricanes Signed Uncut Sheets (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson & Warren Sapp), which sold for $4,893.42.

Given how much I’ve started talking about Venezuelan cards lately, of course my Hobby Library item is the 1968 Venezuela Topps Baseball complete set (in original album), which sold for $40,260. Funny, that’s not the worst-conditioned album I’ve seen!

I really only saw one item with Topps Vault pedigree, but it’s worth sharing: the 1970 Topps Vault Thurman Munson rookie photo transparency, which sold for $2,013 (you can see >175 graded examples of the card for sale on eBay).

A few weeks ago, in NL #345, I shared three pieces of original Topps football artwork. Well, another piece of vintage football card artwork popped up on eBay the other day, and this one sold for a bit more than any of those are currently being offered for: $405 on August 17.

Perhaps that’s because this one was never used (and never finished either)!

The eBay listing identified the player as Bucko Kilroy, which initially made sense. The player in the painting is wearing #76, Kilroy’s number throughout his career with the Philadelphia Eagles (green jerseys).

But Kilroy appeared in the 1950 Bowman set, and his actual card looks nothing like this artwork (graded copies on eBay are limited, but affordable).

More importantly, the back of the artwork is penciled “Harry Jagade Colts.” And that identification fits remarkably well. Harry “Chick” Jagade played fullback for the Baltimore Colts in 1949, wore #76, and, unlike Kilroy, would make sense carrying the football in the painting (he was a fullback while Kilroy was a guard/tackle).

So why didn’t this become Jagade’s 1950 Bowman card?

Jagade played 10 games for Baltimore in 1949, rushing for 174 yards and two touchdowns, but was out of football in 1950. He returned with Cleveland in 1951 and eventually became a two-time Pro Bowler before finishing his career with the Chicago Bears.

Here he is several years later on a Bowman card as a Bear (rarer graded than the Kilroy on eBay, but still affordable). And, for what it’s worth, he certainly looks like the player depicted in the unused artwork.

My guess is that Bowman commissioned the artwork after the 1949 season expecting Jagade to be part of its 1950 set. When he didn’t play in 1950, the card was abandoned before the artwork was even completed (and maybe the artist tried to repurpose it).

I haven’t been able to locate the photograph used as the source for the artwork, but in 1949 the Colts produced 8×10 publicity photos of their players, and some were also used for the incredibly scarce 1949 Silber’s Bakery Colts cards, so one of Jagade might exist.

Until one turns up, though, this appears to be something pretty neat on its own: the original artwork for a Harry Jagade 1950 Bowman football card that never made it into the set. But hey, maybe I’m wrong😉

P.S. If that had your interest, another cool piece of original artwork just popped up for sale on eBay: original cartoon artwork used on the backs of 1974 Topps Football cards.