The number one ranked set of 1887 N28 Allen & Ginter cards on SGC’s Set Registry is about to go on the market.
Heritage Auctions will feature the complete, 50-card set in its upcoming Platinum Night Auction, with a pre-sale estimate of $20,000 or more.
The “World’s Champions” set includes ten baseball players and 40 other sports subjects. It’s considered to be among the most attractive vintage set ever produced and the first nationally distributed group of baseball cards.
The set being offered is tops on the Registry but a wide margin, with an unadjusted GPA of 6.93. Every card ranges in grade from EX to NM/MT+, a remarkable accumulation of cards from well over a century ago. Thirty-five of the 50 cards rate NM 7 or better including a few of the baseball players. The Jack Dempsey card is the highest graded in the set at 8.5.
Measuring 1-1/2″ by 2-3/4″, the cards were inserted in packages of cigarettes at the time. While the cards aren’t numbered, there’s a checklist on the back, listing each subject in the series. Six of the baseball players in the set are now in the the Hall of Fame: Cap Anson, Charles Comiskey, John Clarkson, Timothy Keefe, Mike “King” Kelly and John Montgomery Ward. In addition to the baseball players, the checklist also includes athletes labeled by the tobacco company as “Pugilists, Billiard Players, Pool Players, Oarsmen, Rifle Shooters and Wrestlers.”
Collected heavily by those who favor pre-War sets, the Allen & Ginter cards are color lithographs printed on a white card stock. The name of the “champion” is printed at the bottom along with the words “Allen & Ginter’s Cigarettes” and “Richmond, Virginia.”
Bidding in the Platinum Night Auction is set to open February 1 and close over a two-day period February 23 and 24.
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