Checking In With Lionel Carter

Checking In With Lionel Carter

Shortly after I won Lionel Carter's Eddie Plank in the April 2007 Mastro auction, I sent him a letter asking him a few questions about where he got it. I worked through Doug Allen, President and Chief Operating Officer, at Mastro Auctions to ensure that the letter got to Mr. Carter. Having received no response nearly 8 months later, I thought it might be time to call Mr. Carter myself and ask him a few questions about the Plank. As a result, on January 2, 2008, I decided to call Mr. Carter on the telephone. He was more than happy to talk with me and his comments were insightful and infused with his good humor. He promised to write me a letter regarding his acquisition of the Plank. (At the bottom of this page, you can listen to or read the transcript of my telephone conversation with Mr. Carter.)

Shortly after our telephone conversation, Mr. Carter sent me a note, explaining the delay in his research into the Plank card. That note is set forth below:

And then a couple of weeks later, on January 21, 2008, Mr. Carter sent me a letter, amending his explanation on the telephone and explaining when and where he acquired the Plank. I have shared a scan of that letter below. A bit hard to read, the text of the letter is as follows:

Sorry to be so late with your request for information on the Eddie Plank card, but I’ve been busy with the auction of my card collection which I was forced to sell by the Evanston police after I left an outer door unlocked and was faced with an unwelcome guest who was 50 pounds heavier than I am and 50 years younger (I’m 90). They took $420,000 in baseball cards which the police recovered. My valuable cards were mounted in albums and in the book case and mistaken for a set of books. I would never have sold them!

As for Mr. Plank, I purchased him in Charles Bray sale of 440 lots in the Card Collector’s Bulletin of May 10, 1957 listed as a cigar box full of baseball cigarette cards for $5.00! Figured I had nothing to lose and bid $5.00 and was surprised to get them. All fair or good condition except Plank. Nearly threw him away. Glad he has a nice home!

Sincerely,

Lionel Carter

p.s. I doing my research I found that a Plank card was listed at $10.00 in the 21^st mail sale as I had done enough research but it was priced at $10.00. (It was listed as T206 Plank, thin back (?), I bid $6.55, but it was sold for $13.75 (?).

Excuse the pen. My typewriter broke down while I was working on my book “Carter and the Cavalry.” I was in the horse cavalry in WWII, the only regiment to serve overseas in the Pacific in WWII!

I hope you’ll take good care of Mr. Plank. I certainly miss my 50,000 card collection -- all in perfect condition (except Plank!) and I collected baseball cards for 74 years. Quit when the “money” guys ruined a wonderful hobby.

Best Regards,

Lionel Carter

Shortly after receiving this letter, Mr. Carter wrote me again and asked me to send him back his letter so he could write a letter that could be displayed with the card. Of course, I had no intention of sending back the letter since what he wrote was perfect to me.

But the story continues -- a number of readers wrote me to tell me that they could not find the auction identified by Mr. Carter in his letter to me. So I got a copy of the auction from a fellow collector and I couldn't find it either! As a result, I sent a copy of the auction and the following letter to Mr. Carter in early February:

Dear Lionel:

Thank you for your offer to rewrite your letter to me. I assure you that isn’t necessary. Your first letter was perfect!

I did have a question for you. You wrote:

I got a copy of the May 10, 1957 auction, and there were more than 440 lots and no “cigar box full of cigarette cards for $5.00” listed in that auction. I enclose a copy of both your original letter and that auction for your review. Might you have been mistaken?

Thanks again for all of your help tracking down the origins of our T206 Eddie Plank card.

Best Wishes,

Paul

A few weeks later, I received another letter from Mr. Carter, acknowledging that he must have been mistaken, but promising to get to the bottom of it. Sadly, Mr. Carter passed away before he ever had the chance to figure out the precise source of his T206 Eddie Plank. No matter, it is a magnificent card with a maginificent history -- even if that history is not entirely clear.

With Mr. Carter's gracious permission, T206Collector.com is proud to share my 15 minute telephone interview with this hobby legend -- an interview that was no more than two collectors talking about baseball cards. Among other things, Mr. Carter told me how he thought he had acquired the Plank -- obviously his answer has been amended a few times! -- and then he shared an experience he had with Jefferson Burdick as well as his views on collecting cards and his ultimate sale.

To hear my chat with Mr. Carter, click the link below. You may also download the audio of this interview. In either case, please allow a moment or two for this 15-minute audio file to load.

Click Here To Listen to Lionel Carter Chat

To read a transcript of my interview with Mr. Carter, click on the interview link below.

Read Lionel Carter Transcript

I had to sell approximately 80% of my near-complete T206 set -- about 400 T206 cards, each graded by SGC, that had been accumulated over a period of 10 years -- in order to make my ultimately successful run at Mr. Carter's Eddie Plank. Of course, if I had lost, there would have been a consolation cash prize for enduring my sell off, but I would have been very disappointed to miss out on this extremely important card. Fortunately, the Plank sold for what I believe was a relative bargain, all things considered. And the cash I had left over from my sell off left me some room to begin to grow my signed T206 collection, which began to show up on ebay just as the Plank auction came to a close in April 2007.

To see the Mastro Auction page where the card was won, click the link below.

Mastro Auctions: Lionel Carter Eddie Plank

Click Here: Carter's T206 Set Auction (Mastro)