The “find” is what keeps baseball cards in the news. This is when an unsuspecting person—or expert collector—comes upon a collection of cards that has major historic (and usually, monetary) value. One can look back to 1986 to the “1952 Topps Find,” which uncovered a trove of the modern era’s rarest cards; or more recently, the “Black Swamp Find,” which uncovered a collection of cards from 1910 worth in the neighborhood of $3 million.
While certainly not as lucrative as the two described above, the latest, dubbed the “Fairy Godmother Find“—featuring cards from the 1909-11 T206 tobacco card set—is certainly of substantial historical consequence. For one, it includes 36 separate baseball Hall of Famers—many of which have multiple copies in different poses (a quirk of the 1909-11 T206 tobacco set that they’re a part of). Players include Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Napoleon Lajoie, Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, and Eddie Plank.
The Plank card, in particular, is the card collecting world’s second-rarest baseball card to the T206 Honus Wagner (in condition, worth over $4 million). In its best condition, the Plank has sold for as much as $675,000.00. The Godmother Plank, however, is in pretty rough shape, but should go for about $25,000, according to Leighton Sheldon, president of Just Collect Inc. Sheldon values the collection at about $50,000 and says he’s planning on selling it via a 10-day eBay auction in early August.
Interested in purchasing more 1909-11 T206 cards? Heritage Auctions is putting a bevy of the cards up for sale on July 28. Click here to place a bid.
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