Masterpieces and Uncommon Commons XXVIII
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on:
7/30/2010
No tobacco card could possibly boast the unequivocal rarity of the seldom surfacing T217 Mono Cigarette Pacific Coast Minor League ballplayers. Distributed in 1911 by the Mono Cigarette Company, baseball players and leading actresses were included in their Turkish Blend Cigarette packs. Twenty three different baseball players were issued with 25 total subjects due to two players (Delhi and Hughie Smith) depicted with two separate images. Ultra scarce and extremely condition sensitive, seldom do any examples surface in the hobby, let alone mid-grade specimens. Consider the following “pop” chart data for the spectacular T217 Mono Cigarette Chet Chadbourn presented here in an SGC 80/6 holder:
• The combined SGC and PSA “pop” charts indicate that this unprecedented Chet Chadbourn SGC 80/6 card presented here is the SOLE copy at this tier with NONE graded higher, the highest graded Chadbourn specimen in existence!
• The combined SGC and PSA “pop” charts list only 115 TOTAL encapsulated examples for all of the set’s subjects, with the cumulative average grade residing at a paltry 2.19, and only five SGC 80/6 subjects listed as the highest graded copies (PSA’s highest graded copy is a “VG-EX 4”). To place this unfathomable grading disparity in perspective, this miraculous offering exceeds the 115 encapsulated Mono Cigarette subjects’ average grade by an unfathomable 3.81 or almost 4 full grades!
• Of the total 10 encapsulated Chadbourn cards (SGC-7; PSA-3), its closest competitor is a single PSA 4 specimen.
Outfielder Chet Chadbourn played in 20 minor league seasons, spanning from 1906 thru 1927, playing with the Pacific Coast League Portland Beavers from 1911 thru 1913. A formidable hitter, Chadbourn ended his minor league career with a very respectable .287 lifetime average and even pitched 9 innings in 1926, his nest to last season in professional baseball. Fortunately, he did have the luxury of playing Major League baseball, enjoying brief stints with the Boston Red Sox in 1906 and 1907 as well as for the Boston Braves in 1918. He also was one of the many players who joined the upstart Federal League in 1914 and 1915, playing for the Kansas City Packers. While his professional baseball career did not merit him a spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame, luckily for Chadbourn, his legacy will forever live on via this breathtaking “best of the rest” T217 Mono Cigarette offering. Depicted in his classic Portland Beavers uniform, the classic black & white pose of the right handed outfielder portrays perfect contrast and clarity as Chadbourn appears to be loosening up his throwing arm before game time. The image is near perfectly centered between four super clean white borders, the corners have sustained a majority of their original right angled shape, and no surface flaws are evident. The obscure reverse side “Mono” Cigarette advertisement reflects bold blue typography and reads: “MONO TURKISH BLEND CIGARETTES – 200 Portraits Selected From Leading Actresses And Base Ball Players – 10 For 5 Cents”., with the entire print situated over a relatively clean creamy white background. Undoubtedly, the outstanding visual appeal of this card is consistent with its technical assessment. However, significantly more critical is the incredible disproportion between this offering’s grade versus the aforementioned 2.19 average grade for ALL of the PSA and SGC Mono Cigarette graded subjects. This nearly 4 full grade disconnect is almost as inconceivable as Secretariat’s record setting 31 length win in the 1973 Belmont stakes when “Big Red” left the rest of the field in a cloud of dust. Synonymous to that unequivocal achievement is this T217 Chadbourn specimen that is not only the highest graded T217 example, but via its stratospheric grade, a card that thoroughly leaves a majority of its type card piers in the rear!
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