Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
John If you read modern hobby guides about the 1976 Laughlin Diamond Jubilee set, most will say that the cards were available from the artist for $3.50. Well, here’s an ad from the March 1977 issue of The Trader Speaks proving it!
Note that not only were sets advertised for $3.50, but you could get “2 sets for $6.”
Laughlin described the set as 32 cards based on baseball’s most memorable moments, like Hank Aaron’s 715th home run.
I’m happy to announce the (re) launch of The Post War Cards Newsletter, hitting inboxes every Thursday, starting September 26, 2024!
Whether you’re a passionate collector or someone who loves the history behind the hobby, this newsletter will be your weekly source of vintage card insights. Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect:
It’s a weekly celebration of the vintage hobby community, curated for passionate collectors and enthusiasts.
So sign up; the lady who sold Mark Murphy (The Baseball Card Kid) 84 1952 Topps baseball wax packs would want you to!
I always feel bad for vintage hockey unopened collectors; finding these items is tougher than tracking down a unicorn. Here’s one of them, a 1961/62 Topps Five-Cent Display Box.
Mastro included this one in their December 2004 Sports Auctions of Distinction catalog.
During the early 1960’s, Topps Chewing Gum Company printed NHL hockey cards in the United States, and then shipped the vast majority of them to its Canadian subsidiary. There, O-Pee-Chee, the affiliate company, produced its own packaging for use in distributing the cards north of the U.S. border. Offered is an original 36-Count display box from the Topps/O-Pee-Chee series of 1961/62. The 8” x 3-3/4” x 1-7/8” box, with the issue’s scarce stamp insert prominently featuring in its front-panel graphics, grades at least NM with only very mild, natural handling faults. This scarce relic is a superb representative of a highly collectible U.S.-Canadia collaborative effort.
The minimum bid at the time was $200; that wouldn’t be close to enough today. In the fall of 2022, REA sold a display box, perhaps the same one, that they described as the first they had ever handled and the only example they had seen available at public auction in the past twenty years for $10,500.
Still interested in vintage hockey unopened? In the market for an authenticated 1961/62 Topps hockey wax pack? BBCE listed this one on their site in August 2004 for $25k. PSA has only slabbed seven.
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!
How many of you display pennants as part of your collections? Well, if you don’t and are interested in a nice introduction to them, Michael Solomowitz penned this great piece that Trading Cards Magazine published in June 1992.
I ran across this raw T206 Honus Wagner in Christie’s October 1992 Sports Memorabilia catalog.
I’ve been enjoying tracing T206 Wagner’s sales history lately (number 28 and the Frank Nagy Wagner). Thanks to the Wagner Sales History page and Wagner Gallery on T206Resrouce.com, it’s been made a lot easier. They label this particular example as number 45.
Like I said, Christie’s offered this one raw back in 1992. They provided the following description:
Front depicts Wagner in a color lithograph against a warm orange background with white border, the bottom stating “WAGNER, PITTSBURGH.” The reverse reads “SWEET CAPORAL CIGARETTES, THE STANDARD FOR YEARS” trimmed in red-lined border-2 5/8 x 1 7/16 in.-good to very good.
The T206 Wagner card is the most sought after and avidly pursued collectible card in the hobby today. It has been widely reported that Honus Wagner was vehemently against smoking and therefore requested the withdrawal of his card.However, according to his granddaughter, Ms. Leslie Blair, Wagner objected to the fact that children would have to purchase cigarettes in order to obtain the card; actually, Wanger himself chewed tobacco. To date, fewer than 40 T206 Wagner cards are known to exist.
The expected sales price was $100,000-125,000, but I have yet to confirm what it actually sold for.
The next public sale I have data for is when Heritage Auctions sold the card, now graded Fr 1.5 by PSA, for $2.28M in May 2021. Unfortunately, they didn’t include any information about this Wagner’s provenance.
Goldin then re-sold the card a little over a year later, in October 2022, for $3.72M (a nice 17 month ~$1.5M flip).
Please let me know if you have any more info about Wagner number 45.
I quickly snapped this photo while scurrying about the 2024 National Sports Collectors Convention because it looked familiar.
Once I got home from the show, I remembered the logo was also on the back of 1950 Bowman baseball and football cards.
Details are super scarce, so please contact me if you have more info, but in the early 50s, I remember collectors mentioning that Bowman tried having a collectors club akin to Topps’ Trading Card Guild (Picture Card Collectors Club). The Topps Archives mentions it in a piece titled Re-Rack. Given the boxes below, it could have been how Bowman re-packed unsold cards.
I found that Lelands has sold a pair of these boxes. This first one was titled 1953-54 Bowman Television & Radio Stars/Power For Peace Partial Cello Box (27/36).
It sold for just under $2k in February 2019.
This second example is a 1953 Bowman Power For Peace/NBC Radio & Television Stars Cello Box with 14 Packs. It sold for $879 in March 2022.
The BBCE website has an out-of-stock 1953 Bowman TV & Radio Stars Cello Box that they had offered for $8k.
I also had the following early Bowman cello box in my photo archives; REA sold it in 2021 for $3,960. They resold the same box in August 2024 for $6,900.
Again, please let me know if you have more information about Bowman’s 5-Star Series Picture Card Collectors Club.
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!
Time for another Carpet o’ Wax! This time, 24 1956 Topps Elvis Presley Five-Cent Wax Packs!
Mastro offered this non-sport classic in their April 2004 catalog; here’s the photo of the box they included with the packs.
The box has a factory-placed strip of clear tape and bears a “36 count” overprint, indicating that its contents were marketed in Canada.
The reference number for this 66-card set is R710-1. Most cards are marked “Bubbles Inc.,” so you may also see the set referred to as the 1956 Bubbles Elvis Presley card, which Topps also distributed in penny packs and vending boxes.
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!