Spring Premium LIVE Auction April 30th and Catalog Auction May 7th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/30/2016
Graded VG-EX 4 by PSA. Hall of Famer. Fewer than a dozen copies of this entry have been graded higher by PSA, and less than 75 PSA-graded specimens exist across all levels. No matter what story one believes with respect to the rarity of the glorious T206 Eddie Plank, it cannot be denied that the Plank is an extremely scarce baseball card. Not only is the depiction hyper-elusive in its own right, it features an esteemed, 326-game winning Hall of Fame subject ... an incredible combination! Plank stands behind only Wagner in terms of both rarity and value, and it must be considered the second most valuable card in our hobby. Yet, interestingly, no definitive information has ever come to light to satisfactorily explain this card's paucity of distribution. While many hobby scholars hypothesize that a broken printing plate caused the design to be removed from circulation, this is doubtful. Most Plank cards display the brand's "Sweet Caporal - 150 Subjects" advertisement on their backs, while the splendid representative offered here carries a "350 Subjects" caption. This would seem to negate the broken plate theory. (Otherwise, even if the plate had broken at the beginning of the "350 Subjects" series' printing, the Plank card should be as plentiful as any other in the "150 Subjects" group. This is obviously not the case.) This example has well-formed corners, and features clean white borders that frame a boldly colored illustration. Light touches of discoloration can be discerned in a couple of narrow spots at the bottom edge. The registry in the card's image concedes very slight misalignment, a characteristic often seen in this particular entry. (Focus-related issues, also, have been cited as possible theories about the Plank's painfully limited distribution.) A prestigious and visually compelling collectible, in enviable Very Good to Excellent condition.