Lot # 513: 1911 M131 Baltimore News Newsboys Ty Cobb SGC FAIR 1.5 - One of Only Four Total Examples Graded!

Graded FAIR 1.5 by SGC. The 1911 M131 Baltimore News Newsboys Series set is an incredibly rare baseball-card issue. Presented is the key card from the set: Hall of Famer Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers. This set is very similar in design to George Close Candy but with each player image printed against a light blue background on the front and with the reverse featuring advertising along the top: “The Baltimore News Newsboys Series – Prize of $1.00 to First 35 Boys Getting Full Set of the Following:" This is followed by the 30-card checklist. Jefferson Burdick gave this E94-related issue its own catalog number (M131) in the American Card Catalog because it is clearly a distinct issue from E94. Based on the reverse advertising, this set might have been a special promotion produced for and marketed exclusively to the Baltimore News newsboys. This type of severely limited distribution would certainly account for their extreme rarity. To date, SGC and PSA have combined to grade a total of just 86 cards (of all subjects) from the entire set, including only four examples of Cobb. This card gets our vote as perhaps the rarest of all Ty Cobb cards! This is a striking and extremely presentable example with a strong blue background, excellent centering, and only a small area of paper loss in the bottom border which contributes to the assigned grade. The important "Baltimore News Newsboy Series" line at the top of the card remains boldly printed. This is a very rare opportunity to acquire a remarkable example of the key Hall of Famer from one of the rarest prewar issues in all of card collecting, and it would make a significant addition to any Ty Cobb, Hall of Fame, or type-card collection.