This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/20/2015
As one of the nation's premier auction houses, we've had the honor of presenting just about every world-class specimen under the sun featuring the immortal Ty Cobb, from the finest known example of his 1907 W600 Sporting Life cabinet to high-grade specimens of his many T206 variations to the amazingly beautiful 1912 L1 leather. But the featured item rates among the most elusive in the Ty Cobb anthology, a 1912 T227 Series of Champions card of "The Georgia Peach" that ranks as the one and only example graded PSA 6, a full two grades higher than any other copy graded by PSA and SGC combined. Part of a 24-card collection that features golfers, boxers, motorboat racers and the like, Ty Cobb and three other diamond greats (Home Run Baker, Chief Bender and Rube Marquard) were included to form an assemblage that predates the immensely popular Sport Kings set by over 20 years. By the start of the 1912 season, Cobb was already the established king of baseball, having just earned his 5th consecutive American League batting title and the 1911 Most Valuable Player award for leading the league in runs (147), hits (248), doubles (47), triples (24), runs batted in (127), stolen bases (83) and batting average (.420). His appearance in the T227 collection makes it the linchpin of the series yet PSA has graded just 60 in total. Offering truly unprecedented quality, the confluence of mustard-yellow and forest-green meet at Cobb's elbow in a ray of blueish-purple pigment, ably supporting the well-registered image of Cobb in mid-swing. Each corner meets the specifications of the assigned grade with the bottom two slightly stronger, while the toned reverse displays strong black print devoid of any problems save for some extremely light spotting, an unavoidable result of the card being unprotected within the tobacco pouch. No other specimen known to exist comes close to matching this well-preserved prize!