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1907 Seamless Steel Tubes Post Card Ty Cobb Rookie with Cobb Handwritten & Signed Baseball-Related Message, PSA/DNA Authentic....
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Description
The Georgia Peach talks World Series, season stats on rare rookie card!
1907 Seamless Steel Tubes Post Card Ty Cobb Rookie with Cobb
Handwritten & Signed Baseball-Related Message, PSA/DNA
Authentic. This extraordinary relic stands as one of the most
significant Cobb documents ever to tempt a collecting audience, a
piece that finds the twenty-one-year old Georgian at the very start
of an age of dominance unlike any in the long history of our
national pastime. Cobb had made his Major League debut in the late
summer of 1905, but he entered the 1907 season with a solid but
unremarkable .293 career batting average. At the end of the year,
the entire baseball world would know his name, the presented
postcard identifying its cover star as "the greatest ball player of
the year in America."We should begin with an examination of the object itself, alone a collectible of enormous desirability. This is just the third example of the 1907 Seamless Steel Tubes Cobb rookie that Heritage has had the privilege to present. Fewer than five are known to exist, and the full roster of subjects remains a mystery. The sponsor of the set is a particularly unusual one for a time when tobacco enjoyed nearly unchallenged supremacy over the burgeoning field, a Detroit factory best known as the makers of exhaust systems for steam locomotives. But these odd genetics only amplify the appeal, and likewise serve as a reminder of the larger historical context-the Motor City as a rising American industrial powerhouse.
But as rare and desirable as the postcard is in its standard format, this singular example of the mailer bearing the touch of Cobb himself is exponentially more important. Directed to a former teammate with the 1905 Augusta (GA) Tourists, it bears a Chicago postmark of October 7, 1907, just a day before Cobb's Tigers would battle to a scoreless tie with the vaunted Chicago Cubs as darkness drew the curtain on a three-run World Series Game One deadlock. In his handwritten message on the obverse, Cobb looks ahead to the Fall Classic battle, and back upon a season that would prove to be the first of a dozen in which he'd claim the American League batting title. His full text, with some punctuation added for clarity:
"Well, we have won the pennant and here for world series. I led in hitting, stolen bases 60, assists, and second 100 runs, hit 355 unofficially - hope you lots of luck, will be glad to hear at any time. Royston GA., have an offer to go with all-Americans out to California. Excuse this advertising card."
Cobb signs, simply, "Ty," just below his photographic portrait, his black fountain pen ink applied with the same 9/10 boldness that characterizes the full text. The card itself shows the physical evidence of mailing and eleven decades of storage, but certainly any condition shortcomings must be excused in light of the elite importance of the piece. Note that a ticket for the World Series that Cobb references likewise appears in this auction. Encapsulated by PSA/DNA, Authentic.
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Auction Info
2024 August 23 - 25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction #50072 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
August, 2024
23rd-25th
Friday-Sunday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 26
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 1,337
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
20% of the successful bid (minimum $29) per lot.
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