John

1950’s Star-Cal Decal Counter Display

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Here’s an item you don’t see come up for sale very often: a 1950s Star-Cal Decal Counter Display. It was produced by Meyercord Company of Chicago starting in 1952 for paint and hardware stores.

This September 2000 auction lot consisted of the large 13″ x 21″ dealer display, the envelope in which it was originally packaged, and seven smaller envelopes with four single-player decals and three two-player decals still packaged inside.

The players are Jackie Robinson, Monte Irvin, Rich Ashburn, Red Schoendienst, plus Snider/Roe, Jansen/Maglie, and Hodges/Reese pairings.

This display board still had its folding back stand fully attached and unused. Apart from some localized wear on the lower left corner, it was described as being in near-mint condition with the decals in EX-MT to NR-MT condition with some surface wrinkling. The red envelopes showed handling and mild edge and corner wear.

About a decade later, REA sold the following pair of displays in the spring of 2009 for $2,115, with one featuring New York Giants players and the other featuring Boston Red Sox players.

And another decade later Heritage sold one with Yankees players for $4920 in December 2019.

In terms of the back, Heritage wrote, “Comes wrapped in clear plastic (original?) and a cardboard stiffener. Back has tape and double faces tape remnants.”

1068 Assorted T206 White Border Cigarette Cards

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Unfortunately, most of the photos in Sotheby’s Important Baseball Cards and Sports Memorabilia auction catalog from March 1993 are B&W, but this group of 1068 assorted T206 White Border Cigarette Cards still looks pretty awesome.

You don’t see lots like these often these days, especially since this one included 124 Hall of Famers. The lot contained various manufacturers, but mostly Piedmont and Sweet Caporal brands. Sotheby’s said no cards were less than Vg, and as a lot, the overall grade would be at least Ex, with more than 200 cards in at least NrMt or better condition. Their estimate was $25-30k.

1953 Spic and Span Dry Cleaners Milwaukee Braves Shirt Covering

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How many of you still use dry cleaners? And those of you who do, how many of you save the hanger bags? Well, here’s one that survived in someone’s closet for over fifty years!

It’s a circa 1953 Spic and Span Dry Cleaners Pictorial Shirt Covering. The Milwaukee-based dry cleaning company had a licensing agreement with the local Braves team from at least 1953 to 1957. 

The auction lot for the shirt covering described the bag as containing 12 different portrait sketches of popular players of the Milwaukee Braves, including Warren Spahn. They wrote that the portraits on the bag are 12 of the 13 known Warmuth designs that went into the company’s 1954 card set, so they felt comfortable placing the bag’s date of issue.

The 1991 Topps Sweepstakes Winner Of 40 Sets From 40 Years Of Topps Baseball

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For their 1991 release, Topps randomly packed every card from every complete set produced by Topps over the last 40 years in 1991 retail packs, including the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card – though technically, the pricey and oversized cards were a redemption. On top of the instant-win cards, they also offered an anniversary sweepstakes, where they gave out complete sets from all 40 years to 40 winners. But the grand prize was all 40 sets from 40 years of Topps Baseball to a single winner! 

The “incredible consumer prizes” were detailed to dealers on Topps’ sell sheets.

Topps then highlighted the instant-win prizes on their boxes, packs, and posters to collectors.

Jack Glenn won the grand prize but ended up selling all the cards, including the 1952 Mantle, to Mr. Mint Alan Rosen for $34k.

Rosen wrote in his book True Mint that even though Topps advertised the cards as being worth a lot more, their grades were only Vg to Ex.

1933 R333 Delong Gum Uncut Proof Sheet

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The following engravers’ uncut proof sheet of a 1933 R333 Delong Gum complete set was described as “one of the finest and most magnificent uncut sheets of baseball cards in our entire hobby.”

The 12” x 13” sheet has great colors, a blank back (I can’t recall ever seeing a production sheet around the hobby), and includes all 24 images in the set. The consignor was said to have been tasked to create the color template for the issue and kept this one as a memento. 

The April 2003 auction lot’s description described the arrangement of the cards on the sheet, commenting that the positioning of cards appears unrelated to the set’s numbering. So, the sheet dispelled previously held notions of relative scarcities with the production. However, you can see that Gehrig, Gehringer, William (Bill) Terry, and Pepper Martin occupy the sheet’s four corner positions, which would make them more susceptible to production line damage.

An Incredible Collection of 100 Sports Wrappers

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I’ve always loved wrapper collecting. Too bad I wasn’t buying yet in 2005 when this incredible lot of 100 (1949 to 1972) baseball, basketball, football, and hockey wrappers were auctioned off together.

Most were described as being in clean EX to NM condition. There was also a bit of duplication amongst the collection: BASEBALL: Bowman 1949 one cent green/orange, 1950 one cent dated, 1952 one cent. 1953 Color (GD), 1954 dated (VG) and 1955 (VG). Topps 1951 Red Back one cent, 1952 (VG), 1953 one cent (a NM beauty), 1954 one cent, 1955 one cent, 1955 Doubleheader one cent, 1956 one cent, 1957 one cent, 1958 one cent, 1959, 1960 (2), 1961 (2), 1962 (2), 1962 Baseball Bucks one cent, 1963 one cent, 1964, 1964 Giants, 1965, 1966, 1967 (3), 1968 (3), 1968 Posters, 1969, 1969 Posters, 1970 (2), 1971, 1971 Tattoos, 1971 Super, 1972 (5) and 1972 Posters. Leaf 1948-49 and 1960. Fleer 1960, 1961 and 1963. FOOTBALL: Bowman 1951 one cent, 1953, 1954 one cent and 1955. Topps 1951 Magic, 1956, 1957 one cent, 1958 one cent, 1959 one cent, 1960 one cent, 1961-71 and 1972 (5). Fleer 1960-63. Philadelphia 1964-67 Also 1961 Nu-Card, 1963 Topps Canadian and 1972 O-Pee-Chee. BASKETBALL: Fleer 1961-62. Topps 1969-70, 1970-71, 1971-72 and 1972-73. HOCKEY: Topps 1968-69, 1969-70, 1971-72 (2) and 1972-73.

Wrapper collecting isn’t for everyone, but they are way more affordable than unopened wax packs. And, stored in binders, vintage wrappers display very well together. Another cool thing about wrappers is that there’s usually exciting hobby history involved, as Topps often advertised giveaways on them.

1953 World Heavy-Weight Championship Marciano Vs. Walcott Tickets

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I ran across this ad, from Mastro of all people, in the July 1981 issue of Trader Speaks, looking to sell or trade full unused mint tickets for the world heavy-weight championship boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott at Chicago Stadium. 

He mentions having five different tickets, each with clear portrait photos of the boxers, for $10 each (or for trade). 

After exploring the PSA registry, it looks like Mastro was advertising a combination of phantom tickets for April 10th (white, orange, pink, and cream) and the actual fight on May 15th (blue and orange variations). Here are all the examples from Heritage Auctions.

When PSA first started grading tickets, I don’t believe they were not putting the ticket color on the slab, like the following example.