Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily baseball newsletter that entertains you, makes you laugh, and blows your mind in five minutes or less.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about an Ohio family that found the holy grail of baseball collectibles in their Aunt’s attic.

Jean Hench passed away in 2011 and left everything to her 20 nieces and nephews.

The following Summer, Karl Kissner and his cousins embarked on the journey of going through her belongings and cleaning out their late aunt's Victorian-era home.

Unbeknownst to him, they were actually about to unearth one of the greatest hidden treasures in sports history.

Up in the dusty attic, Karla Hench came across a green box with about 700 baseball cards packaged and wrapped with twine.

They were smaller, tobacco-style cards from the early 1900s, and while Karl thought they looked interesting, there was a lot to clean, so he just set them aside for a couple of weeks.

Once he had the time to go through the box, he realized they were potentially sitting on a gold mine.

The cards were in perfect condition, and featured Hall of Famers like Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Connie Mack.

The family decided to consult the experts (good call) and enlist the services of Heritage Auctions, who authenticated and valued the collection at a whopping $3 million dollars.

The cards were part of a rare series dubbed “E98” from the year 1910.

There are only a handful of the E98’s in existence and the ones floating around certainly aren’t in pristine condition like these beauties.

Apparently included in the haul were 16 Ty Cobb cards with PSA ratings of 9 or better.

The family decided to auction 37 of the best cards initially and got $500,000 for them.

As the years have gone on, more cards have been sold in small chunks, and the discovery has been nicknamed “The Black Swap Find.”

THE GOOD OLE DAYS

If I’m being honest, there’s a lot of teams who should’ve never updated their logos and colors - the retro versions just hit a little different.

Thankfully, our friends at Homage just dropped an epic collection of throwback MLB logo tees that are keeping the vibes alive.

Here’s a little sample of what they’ve got cookin’

They’ve got every team in stock except the Yankees, sorry New Yorkers.

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Cowboy Jones aka “bronco” is exactly who you’d expect him to be.

Born in the territory which is now Golden, CO - he grew up in the wild west.

Jones only played a few years in the big leagues; one season for the Cleveland Spiders and the other three for the St Louis Perfectos (Cardinals).

After 1901, he kept playing minor league ball for another 14 years.

At the end of his baseball career, he became the Mayor of Golden.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Chalmers Scandal: Ty Cobb wins a car

• The Gambler: A deep dive on the notorious Hal Chase

• The Black Eye: Former MVP punches a team owner

That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!

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