This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/16/2015
By the time this Cracker Jack card was issued in 1915, Ty Cobb was unquestionably the greatest offensive juggernaut in baseball history. Still only 28 years old, "The Georgia Peach" had already compiled a resume that included eight consecutive American League batting titles and a lifetime .368 average, with league titles in runs three times, hits five times, doubles and triples twice each, runs batted in four times, and stolen bases three times. He even won the American League home run title in 1909, a triple crown season for Cobb. Baseball was proudly promoting legends named Collins, Lajoie, Speaker, Jackson and Wagner, but there was simply no equal to the greatness that Ty Cobb brought to the diamond. So when Cracker Jack followed up their inaugural issue with the 1915 edition, there was little doubt that Ty Cobb would be the premier pasteboard of the 176-card collection, 32 of which feature Hall of Famers. The featured item is a museum-quality specimen that is matched by one other on SGC's prestigious population report with just two graded higher. Over the course of a century, the 1915 Cracker Jack collection has proven to stand the test of time with many of its members retaining a freshness of the full red color and bright white borders that reveal a production process truly ahead of its time. Other collections printed at the same time, or even 10 to 20 years later, have not been able to match the retention of fresh color afforded the Cracker Jack series, and this is fully illustrated with the offered SGC 92 NM/MT+ 8.5 specimen. The depth of red pigment and sharp detail of Cobb's accurate likeness is more in line with a card discovered 100 minutes ago, not 100 years. The dark black print on the reverse, modestly touting Cobb as "a marvel for speed and batting" is sharp and contrasts well with the cream-white canvas. The centering is nearly perfect and displays an ever so slight clockwise turn of a degree or two that makes it perfectly framed as you reach the horizontal center of the card. The northwest and southeast corners stand out as MINT while the other two are NM/MT and NM/MT+, placing it toward the higher limit of the halfway point. Any collector in the market for a 1915 Cracker Jack Cobb at this elevated grade should be extremely satisfied with the quality of this specimen.