Considered by many sports card enthusiasts as the most beautiful issue ever produced, the American Tobacco Company released a 126-card "Turkey Red" series in 1910 and 1911. Two sets of 50 baseball cards each, referred to as T3, were separated in sequence by a boxing series, designated T9. The 26 T9 subjects contain 14 boxing Hall Of Famers, with notable legends Abe "The Little Hebrew" Attell (a World Featherweight Champion that was later implicated in the 1919 Black Sox scandal), Jack Johnson (the first black heavyweight champion), James Jeffries (nicknamed "The Great White Hope," who came out of retirement to KO Johnson), and Stanley Ketchel, one of the greatest middleweights in boxing history, murdered at age 24 while the T9 set was in production. Measuring 5 3/4" x 8", these super-sized showpieces are renowned for their incredible color and striking artistry. But because of their large size, careful storage and preservation were problematic, with PSA reporting less than 8% of all Turkey Reds grading PSA 6 or higher, and no card from the T9 boxing series has ever scored above PSA 7. The shortage of top-quality specimens makes the presented T9 boxing set all the more impressive, rated the #1 All-Time Finest set on the PSA Registry with an astonishing GPA of 5.927, including three of the seven PSA 7 specimens in existence (#57 Battling Nelson, 60 Owen Moran, and 74 Willie Lewis). Of the 26 cards, eight stand unmatched as the finest ever graded by PSA, including the cornerstone and last card of the set, #76 Jack Johnson at PSA 5.5. Ten other cards rate at the very highest level ever recorded at PSA, making almost 70% of this assemblage completely unimprovable in quality. In addition to the PSA 7 cards are PSA 6 examples (17 cards) of #51, 52 Attell, 54, 55 Jeffries, 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 67, 65, 66, 67, 68 Ketchel, 70, 71, and 72, PSA 5.5 examples (4 cards) of #62, 73, 75, and 76 Johnson, and PSA 5 examples of #53 and 69.
At the end of the auction, the set will be sold to the highest aggregate bidding, whether that is the sum of the individual lots or the highest bid for the complete set. Our website will automatically reflect whichever portion has received the highest bidding total. Placing a bid on this lot constitutes placing a bid on the complete set.