This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/6/2016
Even before Ty Cobb made his debut in 1905, he was the greatest hitter in the baseball history to that point. Except his name wasn't Ty Cobb, it was Napoleon Lajoie. A five-time American League batting champion, Lajoie had just completed the single greatest season in baseball history the year before Sporting Life started producing the legendary W600 series. In addition to his Triple Crown performance of 14 homers, 125 runs batted in and .426 batting average, Nap topped the league in runs, hits, doubles and slugging percentage. And while his 1933 Goudey card is lauded as one of the most coveted baseball cards ever produced, it's the W600 Sporting Life cabinet card of Lajoie in uniform, considered his rookie card by most accounts, that stands alone in terms of importance and scarcity. PSA has only graded 2 examples of this card, this one receiving the nearly unimaginable grade of PSA 6, and another that checks as AUTHENTIC. As astonishing as the grade is, the front surface offers much more than the grade suggests, a clean and unimpeded image of the early 20th century superstar, surrounded by virtually NM endpoints the likes of which have rarely been seen for this series. The reverse shows some light spotting that keeps this beauty from even higher uncharted waters. A classic, museum-quality pasteboard this simply has no equal!