John

Prince of Cards – The “Best” Unopened Product You Will Ever See

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Yesterday, I shared an ad from The Baseball Card Kid, with whom most collectors on the leading unopened FB group had fond memories. This ad from Prince of Cards didn’t precisely elicit identical memories.

The ad is a scan from the June 1996 issue of Sports Card Trader. Here are a few comments from collectors on the Facebook ‘Vintage Wax and Packs’ group after I posed this same ad on September 15th, 2024.

  • One collector noticed that the 1971 rack was bad since the header hole was wrong, and another group expert commented that the 1969 Aaron/Bench rack was probably bogus, too, showing just how far back people were fabricating this stuff.
  • Someone noticed that the 1975 mini box at $1,750 was actually higher than the price for one as recently as 2012 or so. And someone commented that they were getting them for around $400 in the early ’90s.
  • It’s not all bad; one collector said he bought a couple of 1986 Fleer basketball sets from Prince (in the late ’90s), and both Jordan’s graded PSA 8.
  • A collector remembered the huge find of sealed 61-62 Fleer basketball cases in the late 80s/early 90s.
  • Another collector recalled buying a 1969 cello pack from this dealer that, when opened, had two wax-stained cards in the middle (circa 1992). Another purchased some 1961 Fleer basketball packs around this time that, when opened a few years later, had 1980s Topps baseball cards in the middle.
  • A ton of collectors said the packs purchased from this dealer in the early ’90s were bad.

The lesson is to be informed and do as much homework as possible, especially when buying pricey items in the unopened niche. 

Mark Murphy The Baseball Card Kid – Unopened Advertising In Late 1993

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Today, the Baseball Card Exchange is the big player in the unopened space, but in the early ’90s, it was Mark Murphy, The Baseball Card “Kid.” Here’s an ad he placed in the December 1993 issue of Sports Cards Magazine.

You can see along the top that he had just bought a gorgeous run of 1970-1979 Topps Baseball wax boxes and was offering packs from each of them as the first products in the ad. Let’s compare prices in December 1993 to PSA 8-graded wax packs today:

  • 1970 Topps: $200 (5th/6th/7th Series) compared to ~$2000+
  • 1971 Topps: $175 (1st/2nd Series) compared to ~$2000++ (BBCE Auctions recently sold a PSA 8 1st Series pack for $6,667 and 2nd Series packs for $3k)
  • 1972 Topps: $65 (3rd Series) compared to ~$500-750
  • 1973 Topps: $110 (2nd Series) compared to ~$1k
  • 1974 Topps: $60 compared to ~$500
  • 1975 Topps: $90 compared to ~$1k
  • 1976 Topps: $35 compared to $350-425
  • 1977 Topps: $30 compared to ~$225
  • 1978 Topps: $20 compared to ~$150
  • 1979 Topps: $15 compared to ~$115

This ad has so many other awesome products, so I shared the advertisement on the Facebook ‘Vintage Wax and Packs’ group in early September 2024 to see what stood out to people who concentrate on this hobby niche:

  • Some were surprised by how high some prices were at the time; many thought that everything would have been a lot cheaper in 1993.
  • One collector commented that the 1982 Topps and 1991 Stadium Club boxes cost the same.
  • Many commented on how many “bad” decisions one could have made in that ad.
  • A lot of folks had bought vending boxes from him.
  • There were many comments about the 1986/87 Fleer basketball packs being $225 or $425 for two.
  • Many recalled fond memories of dealing with Murphy.

Happy collecting!

A Rare 1966 Exhibit Baseball Uncut Sheet?

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I ran across a rare item in Ron Oser Enterprises’ April 2001 catalog described as a 1966 Exhibit card uncut sheet from the last year that exhibit cards were issued. But I don’t know that the description was accurate!

My understanding is that the 1964-66 Exhibit cards don’t have ‘Printed in USA’ on the fronts and have blank backs, and it looks like the Berra batting card has that text on the bottom right. I’ve also read that this late series has 32 cards that were reprinted from the 1963 Stat set with blank backs (the ’63 set has 64 cards in the checklist), but Adam Warshaw has the best book on exhibit cards, Exhibit and Related Sports Arcade Cards, and he wrote, “As ESCO declined it issued a series of cards in 1964-66 that are substantially short printed and sell for a lot more than similar cards.” He went on to say that “the postwar run also yielded a key error card. Barney McCoskey is the corrected-common; Barney McCaskey is the error.” And I don’t see that card on the sheet. I also have seen 1963 Stat back checklists, and they don’t include a Mantle Portrait, which is included on the sheet and which Warshaw mentions as a key item in the late series. I’m so confused!

It looks to me like the exact same 1947-66 Exhibits uncut sheet that REA sold for $450 in the summer of 2019. They described it as a “32-card uncut production sheet.” They also wrote, “It is a virtual certainty that this sheet originates from the dispersal of The Exhibit Supply Company archives. Long ago, when the company was no longer in business, many of the photos, uncut sheets, and various advertising materials from the archives of the Exhibit Supply Company were scattered to the four corners of the collecting world.”

So, is this a late series sheet? Does the late series have 32 or 64 cards, and what’s their design makeup? Let me know if you know!

1953 Topps #136 Ken Heintzelman Original Artwork

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I’ve previously shared the original artwork for the 1953 Topps Willie Mays and Whitey Ford cards that Guernsey’s sold in its famous 1989 Topps Auction. But other examples have also tricked out over the years, including this one of Ken Heintzelman.

Mastro offered this example in its April 2004 Sports Premier Catalog Auction. The hand-painted piece was described as 3-1/2” x 5” in near-mint condition and, obviously, one-of-a-kind.

Here’s the artwork next to the final card.

The Only Card Topps Made for a Pinch Runner: Herb Washington’s 1975 Topps “Rookie” Card

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In writing an article about 1975 Topps baseball, I had a lot of options: Robin Yount or George Brett’s rookie cards, the mini-cards, the colorful borders, commemorative cards, or stories about unopened products, among many other topics about this super popular 660-card set. But I’ve decided to talk about Herb Washington instead; it is his birthday (November 16th).

The 1975 Topps card, #407, lists Herb Washington as a “Pinch Runner” since that was his only role as a major leaguer; he never had an at-bat. His 1975 Topps card (and the mini and O-Pee-Chee versions) is the only baseball card that ever used “Pinch Runner” as the position label.

Washington was a talented high school runner who went on to run for Michigan State, where he was a four-time All-American in Track and Field.

Herb Washington Running in 1974

In 1974, the Oakland A’s signed him as the team’s designated runner, with no expectations for developing other baseball skills. He played in 105 games without batting, pitching, or fielding. He finished his career with 31 stolen bases in 48 attempts, scoring 33 runs. 

The 1975 Topps card is the only one made for him since he was released early in the 1975 season when the team signed Don Hopkins and Matt Alexander.

1975 Topps #407 Herb Washington – Front
1975 Topps #407 Herb Washington – Reverse

After his 13-month MLB career, he raced as a pro-runner until 1976.

After his running career, Washington owned as many as 27 McDonald’s franchises as a businessman. He sued McDonald’s for systemic racial discrimination and settled the lawsuit in 2021 when McDonald’s bought 13 of his restaurants for $33.5M.

His 1975 Topps baseball card is considered a rookie card and priced a bit higher than most “commons” in the set. Graded 1975 Topps cards are a bit more expensive than you’d think because of the intense popularity of its PSA Set Registry; however, PSA 8s have dipped from ~$130 in 2021 to under $100 today, but the last PSA 9 sold for $368 in August 2024 which is up slightly from 2021. In the Prices by Grade chart below, you can see that there are 3 PSA 10s (up from 2 two years ago), and one of them came up for sale in May 2023; Probstein sold it on eBay for a Set Registry premium price of $3,438!

Herb Washington’s story as a designated runner is usually overlooked when discussing the 1975 Topps Baseball set. While his reception on the team was mixed among players, he still got a World Series championship ring (despite being picked off at a critical moment in game 2).

Happy collecting!

A Rare 1937 R342 Goudey Baseball Thum-Movies Window Sign

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I ran across this window sign advertising the circa 1937 R342 Goudy Thum-Movies in Sotheby’s March 1991 auction catalog, which included The Copeland Collection; it’s a cool-looking sign in black and white, but it’s actually red, white, and blue.

Sotheby’s described the window sign as follows:

Goudey Flip Movie Window Sign, circa 1937, red, white and blue, blank on reverse, thin paper and very delicate, depicting a drawing of a flip movie being flipped and also “gum and pictures only 2 cents” which gives it provenance to the R342 set, near mint to mint. 5⅞ in. by 7⅝ in.

The window sign for the R342 Goudey Flip Movies, were meant to be glued to the window of candy stores. This sign still shows the strips of glue along the edges since it was never used.

Their estimate for the item was $1,000-1,500.

Based on the staple holes and a bit of the paper loss, it looks like Heritage resold the same item in February 2017 for $384.

Heritage highlighted that it was the first time they had the opportunity to present this piece to their bidders and that the item was very fragile.

REA sold the following copy, which originated directly from Goudey’s files, in the spring of 2017 for $360.

They wrote that it still had the original strips of clear glue along the vertical sides, which a candy store was supposed to wet to attach the poster to the window. This one also had two clean staple holes, but the paper loss differs from the Heritage example.

For more information, I previously shared a piece about this set’s cousin; the R326 Goudey Flip Movies set, and Sports Collectors Daily has a nice overview of both Goudey Baseball Movies sets.

1984 Topps Football Cut Card Cases

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Here’s one you don’t see every day, especially in triplicate: a 1984 Topps Football Cut Card Case! One of each sheet (“A”, “B”, and “C”)

Mastro offered these cases in his April 2004 Sports Premier Catalog Auction. While described as an “aftermarket” product, they included a small white sticker with Topps’ distinctive coding information.

Each 35-pound case had 8,650 cards packed in solid, “crisply patterned” rows. Here’s a photo of those rows; I couldn’t get a clean scan since the catalog is so thick, hence the dark color on the left.

With 25,920 cards, there would be enough to create more than 60 complete 396-card sets; that’s a lot of Marino and Elway rookies!

The lot’s description mentioned that the 18” x 12” x 7-1/2” cartons were retaped to ensure structural viability but were unsearched.

I’ll share more about cut card cases in a future newsletter, so subscribe here so you can catch it.

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