1960s-70s R.G. Laughlin Negro Leagues Original Artwork (62)

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This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/3/2025

Presented is an absolutely extraordinary accumulation of the original pen-and-ink artwork of the fabled hobby artist R.G. Laughlin whose unique sets served as a welcome staple for several generations of hobbyists who didn’t know where to turn once they finished building their annual Topps entry. This amazing group of original drawings was obtained directly from the artist, creating an unmatched historical archive for this legendary hobby figure. Starting with his campy World Series sets in the 1960s, later handed off to Fleer for several versions with more traditional distribution, the Renaissance Man would complement his World Series sets with nods to the All-Star Games, Baseball Pioneers, Famous Feats, Wildest Plays and a lot more, including the subject of this lot, the overlooked stars of the Negro Leagues. For many of these forgotten Black stars, their Laughlin art card might be their first and sometimes only baseball card, and the hobby certainly took notice, especially with the increased interest in the Negro Leagues over the last quarter century. With PSA-graded examples of some of Laughlin’s Negro Leaguers selling for hundreds of dollars, the implications for the original artwork that brought those cards to life is staggering. His first effort honoring Black ballplayers was his 1974 Old-Time Black Stars, with 29 of the 36 original pen-and-ink drawings offered here in their camera-ready pasteup glory, with 31 players appearing on two 16-by-20-inch boards, complete with printing and editing markups. Two of the players – Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson – are not the original drawings, and if we have to explain why, how did you ever get this far? The actual cards, at 2 5/8-by-3 ½ inches are smaller than the roughly 3 ½-by-5-inch original drawings, and were printed in brown ink on a tan card stock. Both boards present in nearly Ex-Mt fashion, with some of the pasted-up graphic elements like player or team names missing for some. The lineup devised 50 years ago was filled with largely unknown names in many cases; now dozens of them have well-deserved plaques in Cooperstown. Some of the names include Charleston, Foster, Dihigo, Bell, Wells, Redding, Beckwith, Grant, Mendez, Suttles, Mackey, Dandridge, Poles, Malarcher, Gardner, Monroe, Dixon, Jenkins, Santop, Wilson and Marcelle, among others. The second section of the lot, again the original artwork from Laughlin’s 1978 Long Ago Black Stars, is comprised of 3 ½-by-4-inch individual pen-and-ink drawings representing 33 of the 36 cards in the complete set, which is routinely regarded as Series Two of his Old-Time Black Stars undertaking. These original drawings have no card design or graphic elements but rather are simply his striking pen-and-ink artwork, unadorned, typically with the artist’s pencil notations on the back of the player’s name. The Long Ago Black Stars cards, the same size as Series One, were differentiated by printing in green ink on a pale green card stock. The lineup includes Bankhead, Brewer, Brown, Butts, Crutchfield, Day, Donaldson, Radcliffe, Smith, Stearns and Taylor, to name a few. Put the whole pile together and you have an unimpeachable archive of a legendary hobby artist paying homage to Black players decades before almost anybody else.