Mastro Auctions’ February Sale Rings in New Year of Collecting Excitement Classic Collector first major event of 2009 brings great Sports and Americana items to eager collecting public
Wagner." The Pennsylvania native's light blue fountain pen scripting projects "8” in strength.
Ty Cobb 1946-1960 Signed Personal Checks Collection (9) - All Graded PSA/DNA NM-MT 8
All nine checks are signed in a variety of ink types and colors (including two in his preferred green color) and all of the 3-1/8" x 8-1/8" items are decorated with a lengthy paraph—a notable feature on Cobb scriptings. The encapsulated documents are dated between 1946 and 1960 and were drawn on his personal account at the First National Bank of Nevada.
1955 New York Yankees World Champions Sluggers Multi Signed News Service Photograph (4 Signatures) Including Mantle and Howard
This 8" x 10" black-and-white photo depicts Mantle giving hitting instruction to (from left to right) Moose Skowron, Elston Howard, and Bob Cerv—the latter three players staring intently at their heroic teammate. Clad in their Yankee road uniforms, the players are pictured during a September 26 workout at Yankee Stadium. In blue marker, each player has signed his image. The pennings show "9-10" strength.
MISCELLANEOUS BASEBALL ITEMS
1921 Babe Ruth "Pathé Frères" Phonograph Premium and Record
Less than one full season into his New York Yankees career, Babe Ruth was already larger than life. The offered Pathé Frères 1920 record and accompanying 7" x 9" black-and-white photo premium of Ruth are testament to that. Pathé Frères—a motion picture company and major supplier of nickelodeon products—released this 78-rpm on which Ruth himself tells "BABE RUTH'S HOME RUN STORY." On the "B" side is "ABADALE," a fox trot. Accompanying the record is the original thin-paper sleeve (now separated into front and rear sections with various small edge tears), as well as a photographic premium of the Babe in pinstripes ("Compliments of Pathé"), on the reverse of which is a blow-by-blow account of the homers Ruth hit during the 1920 season—including the pitchers who surrendered the clouts and the sites where they were hit.
1898 Cameo Pepsin Gum Pinback Collection (12) Including Three Teams!
The Whitehead & Hoag Company of Newark, NJ produced these early 1-1/4" celluloid baseball pins as premiums for their neighboring firm, the American Pepsin Co. The celluloid covered premiums were distributed with that latter firm's Cameo Pepsin Gum product and carried back paper advertisements for the confection. The SCD's 2009 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards - 18th edition lists 120 known designs for this set. Mastro Auctions ran a lot in December of 2008 that included another 15 subjects that were not included in the SCD's breakdown (Childs of Cleveland, Clarke of New York [William H. "Dad" Clarke], Cole, Fisher, Fuller, Hutchinson, Mahaffy, McDougal and Vanburen—all of Cedar Rapids, McAleer and McKean—both of Cleveland, O'Brien and Quinn—both of Baltimore, Ryan of Chicago [James Edward "Jimmy" or "Pony" Ryan], and Stivetts of Boston). This lot contains two more to be added to the checklist: Fisher (Brooklyn—different from the other recently discovered Fisher) and Seymour (New York)! The discovery of these two examples brings the set's total of reported designs to 137.
