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Ty Cobb, real or "unreal"?

Bought this on Ebay about a dozen years ago. The card itself is very small. About the size of a 1948 Topps Magic Photo card. There is a Cobb in that set but it's not this one. At the time, I bought it more for the card than the signature on the back as I had never seen this Cobb card before. I still haven't seen the card anywhere else since then, and google and catalog/auction searches have yielded no results. The card itself is 1 and 3/4 by 1 and 1/8 inches, it's very small. It's thick stock (unlike the magic photo cards) and the front is some type of glossy photo stock, not unlike a cabinet card. In the picture, the front looks grainy, but the surface has gloss, like photo stock.

The back bears Ty Cobb in either black Crayola (like the old-timers sometimes carried on/off-field with them) or black ink, I'm not sure. Part of it is faded, so it's probably ink.

I'm 50/50 on the signature, so any input on either the card or the signature is very welcome and appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Jason young on November 29, 2017 at 6:34pm

Hmm weird letter slanting and looks like they tried to age the graph by smudging it. Not real imo. Also y in ty should be more verticle instead of slanting left.

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Permalink Reply by Woody2Shoes on November 29, 2017 at 8:36pm

In person, there doesn't appear to be any signs of doctoring, that is, trying to age or intentionally smudge it. The ink or Crayola is more faded than smudged, look at the double 'b'. Also, the only thing I've seen akin to it are the Cabinet cards of the 1800s and early 1900s (usually huge cards compared to this), and the Topps Magic photo cards of 1948, it's definitely along those amalgamated lines.

Oddly enough, I didn't buy it because of the signature. When it came out of the BIN chute I jumped on it immediately because it's a card that I had never seen before (or since) and I recognized the photo-process style of the 1948 Magic Photo cards in its makeup. At the time, Cobb cuts could be had for under $500 and I hit the BIN at $500 solely because I knew this had to be pre-1949, and something I'd never seen before and with something like that, at the time, on Ebay, you had to hit the trigger fast.

At any rate, to this day, nobody has been able to tell me what this card is and I've seen just about every type of Cobb Tobacco, Candy, Promotional, and Cabinet card in creation. But not this one! Some day.

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Permalink Reply by Jason young on November 29, 2017 at 9:01pm

Ah sorry looked smudged just aging on the card then. Cool card! But yeah still remains too good to be true imo.. where all the ty experts at?

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Permalink Reply by Woody2Shoes on November 29, 2017 at 9:15pm

To me, The "T" and "y" are odd, the staff of the "T" that open "J" instead of a staff more like a check-mark. While that "J-like" formation does exist on some examples, it's the exception rather than the rule. Also, the top of the "T". Most "T"s are like a checkmark wearing a beret, the top of the "T" extends over both side of the staff like a roof peaked roofline, the loop usually solely on the left side of the staff. The "y" is very large compared to the norm and open. That said, the "Cobb" doesn't look half bad, aside from again, like the "y", the "o" looks rather large and open versus what is typically seen.

When I bought this, signed Cobbs were not scarce by any means, and again, I didn't like the signature when I first saw it, I jumped on it because it was a card I had never seen before, obviously of the vintage variety. The pose/picture is typical of his T-206 and E 90-1 era cards.

And in reality, this is real small. A palm or unsupported signature may have distortions due to an unstable position that look exactly like this, that must be considered.