This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/4/2020
With his arms above his head and ready to deliver a pitch that will send another victim back to the bench in defeat, iconic hurler Christy Mathewson is presented at the forefront of a burnt orange background on this E98 card. Unnumbered but listed as card #1 on the checklist reverse, Mathewson was arguably the best pitcher in baseball history at the time, owning a career 236-112 record with a 1.98 ERA over just 9 major-league seasons. And during that stretch, "Big Six" completed nearly 82% of his starts and was coming off of a 25-6 season with a miraculous 1.14 ERA. Exhibiting mostly VG/EX to EX features, the overall assessment is tempered by some light fading of the brown lettering on the right side of the reverse. The corners show some typical enamel loss at the endpoints but appear to have retained enough sharpness to quality for EX status. But overall, you probably can’t find a more eye-appealing example at this grade level. Of the 6 examples listed on the PSA pop report with the orange background, this is example is the only PSA 4 example on record with one graded a level higher. Including all backgrounds and cards that were graded before PSA differentiated by background, there are just 4 others graded PSA 4 with only 3 graded higher.