Just an FYI for all my loyal readers, I will be headed to Las Vegas this Thursday to celebrate my birthday, so unfortunately I will probably not be posting any blog entries after Wednesday of this week. I will be hanging out with some employees from the Upper Deck card company and from American Memorabilia, so I may have some breaking news that I can chime in with, but I wouldn’t bet on it (even if I am in Vegas… Get it?)

    Leland’s preview is online right now and the auction will be going live tonight and it is gonna be a dandy.
The auction even had an item in it that prompted me to give my boy Al Rosen a call. I’m not sure how many of you remember this, but in 1989 Mr. Mint toured the country with an uncut strip of T206 cards that included a Honus Wagner and two other Hall of Famers (Cy Young and Mordecai Brown).
    Well, this same sheet is lot No. 1 in Leland’s May 18th sale.
Al told me that the sheet originally belonged to Barry Halper and that he was trying to sell it for Halper in the two or three million dollar range. That didn’t happen, but it did sell in Halper’s 1999     sale. Since then, it changed hands one more time.
    Despite the strip’s creased nature, I still think that this Honus example is probably second most famous, only less popular than the PSA8 that just sold for $2.35 million.
Will it hit $500,000? $1 million?? Not sure, but I will be watching this one like a hawk.

    If you’re not interested in the Wagner card, maybe you will want to buy his house! Yep, you read that right. Now, I am not going to lie. I don’t really consider cars and houses, which were once owned by an athlete, that much of a collectible. But if I had the chance to buy the home that Vince Lombardi once lived in, I would at least have to consider it.

    There will be a killer boxing offering in Leland’s sale as well, including the earliest known pair of Cassius Clay fight-worn boxing gloves and Sugar Ray Robinson’s first pro fight-worn robe.


    As an off-topic note, I rented the new Rocky Balboa DVD over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. I knew it would be a little cheesy, but it wasn’t too bad and I really enjoyed it. After I was through with that, I watched United 93 and I don’t know if I ever watched something that depressing. It was really well done and I couldn’t help but tear up.