During our Winter auction, we made reference several times to a large collection of Turkey Red cabinets that we had received on consignment. We placed 25 of the cabinets in the Winter sale, and promised we’d be back with the remainder of the collection for our Spring auction.
Since our Spring auction is set to go live next week, we thought it would be nice to share some of the beautiful cards that will be included in the auction.
In our early stages as a company, we seem to be on the receiving end of quite a few “original owner” collections, as well as a number of collections that were assembled outside the hobby mainstream. These Turkey Reds are among them, amassed years ago by a dedicated collector who cared deeply about quality, obtaining the most attractive examples he could find.
These cards are amazing to see, mostly because the color is so rich on many of them, and the cards have retained so much of their original gloss. We didn’t even really know how much gloss was present on the surface of a T3 until we saw this collection – since the oversized cards were often exposed to outside elements due to their large size, the gloss on many T3s have worn off over the years. Such is not the case with many of these cards.
We reviewed the entire collection and submitted many of the cards for grading, to both PSA and SGC. None of them had been submitted for grading before, so all are “fresh” to the hobby. Many of the cards are the highest-graded examples in existent, and many others are right near the top of grading company population reports. The highest-graded of the bunch, this Red Dooin, is one of just 39 Turkey Red cabinets to receive a grade of NM or better from either grading company. It’s truly a spectacular card.
The set’s popular horizontal cards are well-represented, too, with several higher-grade examples:
Many of the Hall of Famers are also spectacular. We featured the Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker and Addie Joss in our Winter sale, and have quite a few more that we’ll be offering in the Spring sale. While there is, sadly, no Cobb in the collection, there are plenty of others:
There were also quite a few T9 Turkey Red boxing cabinets in the collection. While not as attractive as many of the T3s, grade-wise, there are many beautiful cards in the group.
Not all the T3s are high-grade beauties. Some have lower technical grades, due to small flaws like surface abrasions, corner wear, wrinkles, and even the occasional pinhole. A couple are even in the “beater” category, with larger holes, corner clips, and in a few cases, paper loss. We kept many of these cards ungraded, since we know that they appeal to collectors who are simply hoping to amass a Turkey Red set with strong image quality, willing to accept border damage as a trade-off.
Either way, it is rare that a collection of this quality finds its way into the hobby – a fresh collection, only recently graded and offered as individual lots in our auction.
The sale opens next week!