Mayo Cut Plug Dunlop Sells For $10,000+
On October 8, 2007, what is considered by many collectors to be the most valuable football card in the hobby sold on eBay for $10,101.51. A majority of football card collectors have possibly never heard of the card.
The card features a portrait photo of a football player, but he is basically an unknown athlete, but supposedly the playey is John Dunlop of Harvard, although his identity was not known until a few years ago.
The rare and valuable football card is from a set by the Mayo Tobacco company, and the set is often known to collectors as "Mayo Cut Plug." The set was released in the 1890's, believed to be in 1894, and is considered to be the first football card set ever issued. The Mayo Cut Plug football card set featured 35 players from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
The Mayo Tobacco company released a number of other collectable card sets during that era that included baseball players, boxers, movie stars, and other subjects, but this was the first set to exclusively feature football players on trading cards. That's just one of the reasons that make this card one of the most important in the hobby. Several of the athletes included in the Mayo football set were among the top football players in the United States at the time, including many All-Americans. However, this one single card (Dunlop of Harvard) is much rarer and more valuable than any of the other cards in the set.
I'm not sure why this card is so much harder to find than the others. Some collectors speculate that because Dunlop's name and school were not on the card, a lot of them could have been thrown away over the years of stashed away with other stuff. There is no doubt it is a rare card.
The seller of the card (Andy Szoke of Bangor (Pa.) Coins and Collectibles) told Beckett that he found the card while searching through some old collections he had purchased over the years at his store, with the intention of donating a portion of the proceeds to a charity project (Alice Visionary Foundation Project) he had committed to after a visit to Africahind it.
Szoke had other cards from the same set, but he chose to list this one individually because he noticed the card had no player name or school name, and he thought it was intriguing. The other cards he grouped in small lots and listed them on eBay also. He says as soon as he listed the Dunlop card, he began receiving offers to end the auction early, with those offers topping off at $8,500. All of the interest shown on the card clued Szoke into the fact that it must be something special. He looked on Becketts online price guide and saw the card listed at $12,000-$18,000 in EX condition. Although his card would probably grade a "poor", he knew he had a lucky find by discovering such a rare card mixed in with his other stuff. He was right. The card was indeed special, and the rarity of it caused the bidding to go over $10,000!