Mueller: Wisconsin barn yields century-old Cracker Jack baseball poster
From SABR member Rich Mueller at Sports Collectors Digest at April 12, 2016:
For the better part of 90 years it sat inside a Wisconsin barn. Through the era of Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb. From Ruth to Gehrig, past DiMaggio and Williams and onto the era of Mantle and Mays. From Pete Rose’s first hit to his last and through all of Nolan Ryan’s 5,714 strikeouts.
Decades of dust accumulated. Edges frayed and once sharp corners disappeared. Seasons changed—from damp springs to brutal winters– but it survived. Finally, about ten years ago the owner who had inherited the old baseball poster when he purchased the property on which the barn had sat, brought it inside his house.
Then he saw the story of the Lucky 7 Find of rare T206 Ty Cobb cards. And he wondered.
Is that old poster from the barn worth anything?
One conversation with a baseball-loving friend led to another with Mile High Card Company President Brian Drent and now a newly discovered example of one of the hobby’s rarest and most desirable advertising pieces—a 1915 Cracker Jack advertising poster—is coming to auction.
Read the full article here: http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/wisconsin-barn-yields-baseball-treasure/
Originally published: April 18, 2016. Last Updated: April 18, 2016.