Attached 1888 Scrapps Cards, M101-5 Complete Set Coming to Auction

In this day of television shows focusing on people rummaging through collections for the latest find and the overwhelming awareness of what’s now collectible and worth money, it’s getting harder to unearth items that are truly new to the sports hobby.

Well, Memory Lane has a trio of subjects that are going to get a lot of people’s attention in December, as no one has seen anything like it at auction before. Thus, the California-based company is calling its Nov. 30-Dec. 15 sale “The Find” auction, featuring more than 800 high-end lots.

For vintage card collectors, the big news comes in the form of 12 lots of 1888 Scrapps – small cardboard character headshots of various politicians and athletes. According to Memory Lane’s Ian Taylor, these are new to the hobby and actually fill in some information on these rare pieces.

A few of the Scrapps – which were produced to be placed in scrapbooks, hence the name – are still attached in panels, something no one has seen before. Most Scrapps are singles, having already been detached.

Memory Lane has a panel of four headshots and two, two-panel examples, with 20-25 Scrapps in all. In the panels, where the pieces are attached with a small piece of cardboard, resides information on where they were made and how they were put together – again, a first for the hobby.

More prewar gems surface in the form of a complete set of 1916 M101-5 Sporting News cards that are also new to the hobby. “This set is considered to be nearly impossible to put together,” Taylor said.

The five keys in the set, Ruth, Joe Jackson, Walter Johnson, Jim Thorpe and Honus Wagner will be offered separately, with the rest of the near set (195/200) sold as one lot. All told, the set is No. 2 on the PSA Set Registry.

Another gem is a Babe Ruth signed ball, but what comes with the ball is the real find. The ball is accompanied by a video of Ruth signing the ball – in 1931. A boy named James got the signature from Ruth along Ruth’s dugout. James’ dad worked for Kodak at the time and was testing a new video camera. The video shows James getting the ball signed and the boy walking up the stairs to his dad and showing the ball to the camera. You can see the full video soon on Memory Lane’s website, www.memorylaneinc.com.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The sale will also include a T206 Honus Wagner PSA 2 and T206 Eddie Plank PSA 5, along with hundreds of other high-grade singles and a collection of 45 beautiful T9 boxing cards, with Jack Johnson.

All bidding starts on Nov. 30 at www.memorylaneinc.com, running through Dec. 15. For more information, call (877) 606-5263.