Joan Rubenfeld’s article about the 1991 Anaheim National in Allan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Prices Guides premier issue in October/November 1991 is a wonderful piece that still holds up today!
Here are a few of my favorite lines:
“The first impression one gets on entering the convention hall is of the people- thousands of people – old, young, in carriages, toddling, serious looking, smiling, intense.”
“Despite the long lines for everything…”
“Strangely, many of the people seem to be dressed alike…”
“The majority of those attending the convention was older adults.”
“The array of merchandise for sale was mind boggling.”
“Among the stars in attendance the day I was there were Warren Spahn, Pee Wee Reese, Reggie Jackson, Billy Herman, Duke Snider, Lou Brock, Y.A. Tittle, Paul Hornung, Monte Ervin, and Emmitt Smith.”
“Nostalgia flooded me…”
“By this time, I was worn out, and spying a vacant chair…”
And finally, “Next time there is a sport card show in your neighborhood, and particularly if there is a ‘biggie’ like the National Convention, go to it!”
You’ll occasionally find a 1952 Topps Wings cello pack for sale, but wax is far scarcer. So I was pretty surprised when I ran across this nearly complete 5-cent wax box from an April 2004 auction catalog.
This lot was for a “marvelously well-preserved, two-part Wings display box that once held thirty-six 5-cent packs of the aviation-themed treasures. Thirty of the unopened wax packs are still nestled inside and, with their 8” x 5-5/8”x 1-1/2” lidded counter-sales box, they recreate the vision of a confectioners display from more than a half-century ago.”
The box was described as Near Mint and the packs as Excellent to Mint. The lot also included this flattened wrapper.
As far as I can tell, PSA has only slabbed two 1952 Topps Wings wax packs: the following PSA 7 and another graded 8, which includes a 5-cent designation on the flip. There are 30 cello packs in the Pop Report.
However, The Baseball Card Exchange did offer this “1952 Topps Wings Wax Unopened Box (1 Cent)(120 Packs)” for sale on their website for $16k a while ago, and there are a few GAI-slabbed wax packs, too.
In July 2009, Dave and Adam’s Card World purchased an item that neither they nor anyone else in the hobby had ever seen or believed existed: a 1990-1991 OPC Premier Hockey vending case.
1990 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case
1990 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case
1990 OPC Premier hockey was the first high-end hockey product. The release had a great rookie class, great design, and limited availability, so they were hot out of the gate. Boxes went from $30-40 to over $250 pretty quickly.
However, two significant developments in the hobby affected the O-Pee-Chee Company at the time. First, 1990-1991 OPC hockey cards showed up at a few shows before their official release, and second, there was a big wave of counterfeiting of OPC products at the time, as their simple paper stock made them easy targets for forgers who were printing runs of star cards.
The original owner of the case of 1990 OPC Premier vending boxes had been assisting OPC with their investigation, so as a thank you, Gary Koreen, the President of OPC Company Limited, sent him a vending case of approximately 10,000 Premier Cards. In his correspondence, Gary mentioned that they did not produce vending cases of this product.
Case Correspondence Page 1
Case Correspondence Page 2
And it’s true, OPC only made their premier cards available through foil packs in boxes and via a factory set. They did make vending products for the base product, though.
Also, the date of the letter, February 22, 1991, made it clear that the case could not have been a later release; it had to be 1990-1991.
Case Correspondence Letter
The case was factory sealed, brought to the National Sports Collectors Convention in Cleveland for the July/August 2009 show, and slapped with a $6k price tag. Reed Kasaoka mentioned, in an interview with Beckett at the show, that the collector may have missed the case’s peak value, potentially over $20k, had he sold it when the cards were selling for over $200 a box.
1990-1991 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case at the 2009 National
1990-1991 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case at the 2009 National
Dave and Adams sold the case back then, and to this day, no one has any reason to believe it’s not legit; the correspondence helped remove a lot of doubt.
What price do you think this unique 1990-1991 OPC Premier hockey vending case would fetch at auction today?
—— Update Since Original Posting ——
I originally posted this story here on the blog in August 2022; shortly after that, the dealer who sold it to Reed Kasaoka contacted me to share a few more details, which I published in The Post War Cards Newsletter #27 (the newsletter is now defunct) in March 2023.
The person who sold it to Reed (let’s call him Owner 3 so as not to use real names) wasn’t the original owner; the 1st owner was Ronald Mastro (whose name is written on the case pictured above), who sold it to Owner 2 who was Owner 3’s business partner.
When Owner 2 bought the case from Ron, Ron said that OPC President Gary Koreen hired him (Ron) to investigate and deal with the ongoing theft problem at OPC. Ron was to figure out who and how people were stealing numerous cases without any trace. Ultimately, Gary was pleased and thankful for Ron’s help in controlling the theft problem. So besides Ron’s compensation, Gary decided, as a courtesy, to give Ron the 1-of-1 vending case of 1990-91 OPC Premier Hockey Cards, which no one knew existed, and Ron promised never to get rid of.
Well, Ron sold it to Owner 2 for $10k, who then sold it, for unknown reasons, to Owner 3 for $5k. After about 12 years of owning the case, someone in the sports card world told Reed that Owner 3 had this one-of-a-kind item that no one knew existed, so Owner 3 got contacted by Reed. At the time, hockey cards had hit an all-time low, so the vending case didn’t have much value, no matter how rare it was. So, Owner 3 wanted to get the case out of his safe. First, he contacted Gary Koreen to let him know he possessed the vending case and asked if it was really a 1-of-1. Gary wasn’t happy to find out Ron sold the case but confirmed it was real.
Owner 3 offered the case to Reed for $3k, but they settled on $2k since that was approximately the break-up value of the 10k cards in the case. It had a $6k price tag at the 2009 National, but I don’t know what it sold for or who has it now.
The 1950 Japanese Menko baseball card set features 52 leading Japanese players printed as playing cards, plus a joker featuring Babe Ruth. This uncut sheet was offered for sale in August 2003.
It’s one of the few times that Babe Ruth appeared on a Japanese card. The sheet was described as being 15” x 10-1/4”, off-center left, printed on both sides with a slight darkening on the back at the bottom, and with minor soiling at the lower right on the front that doesn’t affect any cards; EX/MT overall.
I don’t know much about Japanese baseball cards, but I did pick up a few books for the Hobby Library by noted niche expert Gary Engel.
Also, these sheets seem relatively common (Engel confirms this in the 6th Edition of his Japanese Baseball Card Checklist and Price Guide, mentioning that this set is generally found as an uncut sheet), with recent prices averaging a few hundred dollars but trending up; there are a few outliers over $1k.
You can download a digital version of Engel’s guide here.
There are some incredibly unique collectibles out there, like this 1940/41 O-Pee-Chee double-sided “uncut sheet” I found in a 2005 Mastro auction catalog.
Here’s the lots full description:
In 1940, O-Pee-Chee continued the production of their oversized 5″ x 7″ cards from the year before. The offered uncut sheet contains images of all 50 cards in the 1940 set. Card #’s 101-125 are printed on one side of the sheet while cards #’s 126-150 appear on the other side. Card #’s 101-125 are printed in black and white while the remaining cards are in sepia. A plethora of stars are present, including #’s 102 Sands, 108 Broda, 116 Reardon, 118 Apps, 125 Lach, 130 Broda, 131 Bentley, 132 Schmidt, 136 Patrick and 146 Apps. The sheet measures an imposing 25-1/2″ × 36″. Due to its size, it is host to a plethora of condition problems, including multiple creases, edge tears, surface scrapes, etc. Despite these flaws, we cannot overstate its importance, and the piece may well be the only one of its type in the hobby. With proper framing and matting, this rarity would make a spectacular display piece and nicely complement the finest advanced hockey collection.
However, I think Heritage Auctions got it right when they sold an incredibly similar item in October 2021 for $810 and described it as an advertising poster.
They wrote, “This is a two-sided poster printed on thin paper. Was it meant to hang in retail stores? Did O-Pee-Chee consider making dual-sided cards on paper to accommodate the war effort like ’41 Play Ball baseball cards on paper in the states? Either way, it is very rare. There is some obvious edge damage, surface damage and creasing. Every card is affected by creasing. Overall size is approx 25” x 35″ on paper.”
Do you know how folks found cards for their collections in the early 80s? They took out ads in hobby periodicals like John Spalding did in this request for 1935 to 1941 Wheaties Panels in the July 1983 issue of Trader Speaks.
Spalding was also looking to hear from Wheaties collectors for a few research projects and was willing to refund postage costs for info. He passed away in 2012 but was a prominent hobby contributor as a writer, researcher, and collector.
By the way, the panel included in the ad is from 1936.
The 1960 Post Cereal cards were issued on the backs of Grape Nuts Flakes cereal boxes and measure 7″ x 8-3/4″. The full-color cut cards are already pretty rare, but complete boxes that include side panels with player bios are like unicorns. After some research, I think just a single complete set exists in full-box form. I first came across it in Mastro’s April 2003 Catalog.
They described the cards, within the boxes, as being in Near Mint to Mint condition and offered the lot with a minimum bid of $2500. At the end of the lot’s description, though, they mentioned it as an “Ex-Copeland collection” piece.
So I pulled out Sothetby’s March 1991 catalog that presented The Copeland Collection of Important Baseball Cards and Sports Memorabilia, and there it was as lot 573, but it only included a photo of the Mantle box.
Then, in the fall of 2018, REA re-sold the set for $11,400.
They included a more detailed condition description: Mickey Mantle (card area is Nr/Mt-Mt, light moisture stains very near edge of frame), Ed Mathews (card area is Ex due solely to tiny wrinkle extending from bottom edge), Harmon Killebrew (light mark on left side of frame, otherwise card area is Nr/Mt-Mt), Al Kaline (card area is Vg-Ex+ due to tiny wrinkles confined to the very perimeter of frame), Don Drysdale (card area is Vg+ due to creasing), Johnny Unitas (card area is Vg/Vg-Ex due to light wrinkles confined to the perimeter), Frank Gifford (card area is Ex due to tiny wrinkle extending from right edge and a bit of staining on the reverse), Bob Cousy (card area appears Nr/Mt-Mt from the front, with a bit of staining on the reverse), and Bob Pettit (card area is Nr/Mt). The grades listed above focus just on the card area and not the surrounding portions of the boxes. All the top flaps of the boxes are missing; all the bottom flaps were glued at one time then later opened causing paper loss and remnants of paper on those areas.
