By Amar Shah
Cracker Jack cards, with their iconic red background and delicate paper stock, are ingrained in the fabric of baseball history. But as iconic as they are, it’s rare to find a collection of 1914 and 1915 Cracker Jacks like the one our consignor inherited.
The cards were first discovered in the early 1980s, tucked away in a gym bag inside a metal coffee can, alongside a vintage mitt and cleats. Our consignor recalls that the mitt and cleats possibly belonged to his great uncle who played baseball in high school and college. The genesis of the card collection goes back even further, likely from his childhood. It was the consignor's grandmother that subsequently passed the cards along to him.
“Thank goodness because the humidity there is bad. It's a miracle that the cards made it all the way from 1915 to 1980,” the consignor reflects.
The coveted 1914 and 1915 Cracker Jack sets are among the most famous in hobby history and inside the can was about a third of the set. This discovery sparked an obsession with completing the set that would shape much of the consignor's life. After all, the Cracker Jack slogan does say “The more you eat, the more you want.”
This collector's hunger for completing the set grew with each new card.
“I was getting real close. I wanted to finish the set, but the week before I was going to get married, I was missing the Shoeless Joe Jackson card, and it was $8,000. I just couldn't do it,” he shared.
That decision to prioritize life over cards didn't diminish his passion, but it did slow down his quest to complete the set.
This 1915 E145 Cracker Jack #37 Grover Alexander PSA NM-MT 8 will be one of the featured cards from the collection
Over the years, our consignor steadily added to the collection through phone orders and catalogs, long before the convenience of the internet.
“I'd call in and buy some over the phone and they'd mail them to me,” he recalls. There were moments of trust involved, as some cards were simply left on his front porch in cardboard boxes.
Living in a warm climate presented a unique challenge—protecting his valuable set from frequent hurricanes and floods.
“Anytime any kind of storm would come, I'd take the cards with me when I evacuated. The Cracker Jacks I always kept safe,” he explains.
While other collections, like a set of T206 cards, were damaged during floods, the Cracker Jack cards remained intact and carefully stored.
What makes the Cracker Jack cards so special? For one, they were originally distributed inside Cracker Jack boxes in 1914, which resulted in many of the cards bearing candy stains as a result of the molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts. In contrast, the 1915 set was available via mail-in, so they are often found much cleaner and can be distinguished by a notable quirk—backs printed upside down.
“The 1914 ones generally were in much worse condition because they had candy stains on them, but I liked that,” he says.
Complete sets of either Cracker Jack series are quite rare. So, too, are even large groupings of cards from either set. REA’s vintage-card experts can only recall a few instances where double digit numbers of previously unknown Cracker Jack cards popped up for consignment to one of the company’s auctions. Within the 1914 set are a number of very tough players and hard-to-find Hall of Famers, such as Christy Mathewson, that make completing the set so challenging.
As part of REA's Fall Catalog Auction, which runs from November 22 to December 8, the consignor will be auctioning off his prized Cracker Jack cards, including PSA NM-MT 8 examples of Hall of Famers Grover Alexander and Zach Wheat from the 1915 series. In total, he was only a few cards away from completing the 1914 and 1915 sets.
The collection features many of the key cards from the iconic 1914 and 1915 Cracker Jack sets
Having hid in a coffee can for the better part of six decades, most of these Cracker Jacks are new to the hobby, including 1914 and 1915 examples of legends Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson. More than 70 lots in the REA Fall Auction will originate from this collection.
When asked about his favorite card, the collector said, “It would have to be Joe Jackson because of his extreme talent and the sad story of the end of his baseball career. Ty Cobb's card is a close second.”
After years of holding onto the cards, the consignor has made the difficult decision to sell them with REA.
“It's been part of my life since maybe 1981 or 1982 and it was kind of hard to do it,” he said. “But it brought a lot of pleasure to me and now I'll let someone else enjoy it.”
Enjoy it, they will. The cards are sweet for certain.
This story was originally published on Sports Collectors Daily.
Amar Shah is a multiple Emmy-winning writer and producer who has written for ESPN.com, NFL.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Orlando Sentinel, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Slam Magazine and The Washington Post. In the 90s, Amar was a teen sports reporter and got to hang out with the Chicago Bulls during their golden era. He even landed on the cover for Sports Illustrated for Kids with Shaquille O’Neal. His debut novel "The Hoop Con" is now available with Scholastic. You can order it here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hoop-con-amar-shah/1143287376?ean=9781338840315