Tony Bussineau had a cool Yankees Stadium Tickets sign printed on glass. Tony clarified he wasn’t sure if it was a genuine Yankees artifact, or fantasy piece someone had made, but it sure looked like it was real, 23 ½” wide, by 4” tall, $300.00. Tony also had an interesting and very unusual original period relief plaque of Joe Louis. It appeared to have been made of an unusual paper type composition material that looked almost leather, 10 ¾” tall by 8 ¾” wide, $200.00

Lynne and Ron Cunningham of Quality Pennants of Duncanville, TX. had a huge 5 ft. University of Illinois pennant, $500.00. Lynne and Ron also had a great 13 inch tall, circa 1930 doll of a little boy football player, in excellent condition, $275.00

Brian Morris of Montclair New Jersey had a 1934 Major League baseball pinball machine, missing the glass top, $2,500.00.

Next was the Leland’s booth. Josh did a smart thing and put up a sign that said,”Everything in this booth is for sale” That’s what we like to see! First up, an extremely rare set of Rittgers basketball player figures. They were modeled with the typical Rittgers bizarre goofiness; one of the players had the other players head in his hands. I’d seen a lot of Rittgers figures but never these, so they must be extremely rare. They had the original net and backboard, and the condition was unbelievable, like new! 8” tall, $3,500.00 see above. Guaranteed to make a Rittgers collectors day! Next in Leland’s booth was a very handsome 1937 silver plate figural golf trophy, looked like Bobby Jones. Had a small dent in the forehead, but still nice, 16 ¼” tall, $750.00 see above. Next in Leland’s was a rare die cut standup Reach baseball equipment sign, featuring an illustrated Mickey Cochrane in action with catchers gear on. Pretty strong! 29” tall by 17” wide, $7,500.00 see above. Next was one of the greatest baseball pieces I’ve ever seen in person, and definitely one of the best things at the show, it was exquisite! An 1875 sterling silver engraved presentation baseball presented by members of the 1850 Knickerbockers Baseball Club to fellow teammate James White Davis, on the teams 25th anniversary. The ball was in it’s original case, and also had two miniature bats with Davis’ name engraved, $150,000.00 see below. 

Next up was the booth of Dave Hunt of Hunt Auctions from Exton PA. Dave had a great looking booth as usual, but not a lot of it was for sale. Most of the stuff was on display for his upcoming auction August 19th and 20th 2005. He did point out a few things that were for sale though. First was a very nice c1910 Spalding bat rack made of oak. The Spalding sign on top had been restored. 78” tall, $9,500.00. He also had an Old Judge Coffee calendar featuring the 1932 St. Louis Cardinals Championship team, nicely framed and ready to hang, 41” tall by 21 ½” wide, $1,600.00. I also saw a John Rogers football group statue made of plaster, that will be auctioned on August 19th, lot 228, estimate $4,000-$6,000. 

Then it got interesting. As I looked around the Hunt’s booth I spotted what appeared to be some kind of print or poster with a very interesting scene of circa c1880 college students sitting on a fence. It was sandwiched with other similar sized pieces that were all stuffed between two display cabinets. I waited what seemed like forever for Dave to disengage from a conversation with someone so I could ask him about it. His assistant as well was engaged in a lengthy conversation. Finally I couldn’t take it any more and pulled it out to look at it. I recognized the illustration from an c1880’s literary poster for a book called “Yale Yarns”, except it was just a print, no advertising. But then it went from very interesting to heart stopping. Behind it was another print, same format, little smaller, and it had the greatest football illustration I’ve ever seen, or ever expect to see. For me it was like an art connoisseur finding an Albert Bierstandt at a garage sale. It was fabulous! But then it all came to a screeching halt when Dave’s assistant saw me looking at it and quickly came over and told me they were sold, and started putting them back between the cabinets! I said, would it be possible to just look at them? “No” was the immediate answer. I looked over at Dave, and he was oblivious to it all and still deep into the same conversation. It was over, there would be no viewing it, and I was sick about it! My afternoon was ruined. I went ahead and continued to cover the National best I could, but unenthusiastically. As I started thinking about it, it dawned on me how little there was of the really great stuff at the National, and how most anything great had probably already been bought up before the show opened. My gut feeling was Gary Cypres had bought it, as I knew he was on Hunt’s “A list”. I figured if I ran into Gary I’d ask him if he got it, and if so he’d surely let me look at it. But it was all ifs, I didn’t even know if I’d see Gary. The next day I finally got around to John Kanuit’s booth. Kanuit would know I thought, he’s part of the infrastructure. “Hey did you see those incredible football prints that Dave Hunt had” I asked. “Uh yeah” John said. “Did Cypres get those?” I asked. John gave me a cautious, I’m not really at liberty to say, shake of the head, and affirmed it. The next day I was walking by Kanuit’s booth when Gary happened to be there. He called me over and gave me a warm greeting. Hey did you get those football prints from Dave Hunt I asked. Yeah he said. Hey you think I could look at those I asked. Sure he said. Great, I’ll tell the girl you said it’s O.K.; she wouldn’t let me before I said. Sure he said, looking a little puzzled, they’ll let you. So I made a beeline and told Dave that Gary said it would be O.K. for me to look at those football prints he got from you. Sure, no problem Dave said, like it was no big deal! He pulled them out for me and walked off to do something else, and my whole National experience took a turn for the better. 

Both the prints had thick clear plastic over them for protection, so I had a hard time photographing them. I couldn’t stop looking at the scrimmage one; it was the most incredible piece of art I’d ever seen I think. The scrimmage one was 38" wide by 20" tall. The one with the students on the fence was 38" wide by 26" tall.