Here’s another cool item from Mastro’s June 2008 Classic Collector Auction: a 1955 Exhibit Card Catalog.
The only other copy I’ve seen (which could be the same as Mastro’s) is on Adam Warshaw’s Exhibit Supply Company Page.
The full text of the cover says: Exhibit’s Cards for 1955: Sportlands, Amusement Parks, Carnival Operators. The Backbone of the Amusement Arcade Business. Exhibit Supply – 4218 30 W. Lake St. Chicago 24, Ill., Est. 1901.
From the ad’s appearance, the slicks along the top appear to feature Exhibit’s Art Model Cards.
The 1979 OPC Hockey set is a landmark release in the hobby, largely due to the iconic Wayne Gretzky rookie card. But the set is incredible for a few other reasons. In this piece, I’ll highlight some of them while saving a detailed analysis of Gretzky’s #18 rookie for another time.
1979 OPC #18 Wayne Gretzky
First, the 1979 OPC design is sharp! They moved from a white border design to the now-iconic blue-bordered design.
However, while they look incredible, those blue borders are condition-sensitive and prone to chipping. The cards are also tough to find centered. The rough cut edges are typical for O-Pee-Chee cards, and while they don’t detract from the grading of cards, they can turn off certain collectors.
The bilingual backs have 1978-79 statistics, a biography, and a cartoon sharing a fun fact about the player.
1979 OPC #170 Gainey – Reverse
Next, the set debuted four new NHL clubs in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec, and Hartford. These team cards and checklist emblems (logo cards) are some of the most expensive cards in the set.
1979 OPC #261 Nordiques Team
The set is also famous for having the last cards of Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and Ken Dryden. Howe was still playing pro hockey at 51, so this set demonstrates the torch passing from Howe to the 19-year-old Gretzky.
1979 OPC #175 Gordie Howe
1979 OPC #185 Bobby Hull
1979 OPC #155 Stan Mikita
1979 OPC #150 Ken Dryden
As is standard with older hockey releases, the checklists are particularly expensive. This set includes three: #131, #237, and #346.
1979 OPC #237 Checklist #133-264
Unfortunately, wax packs are selling for a little more than the 20 cents they sold for when released in 1979. Graded wax packs are multi-thousand-dollar collectibles; REA sold a PSA 9 in the spring of 2024 for just over $3k.
1979 OPC Hockey Wax Pack
Wax boxes, which hold 48 packs, are proportionally expensive; each pack has 14 cards, which means you will get 672 total cards in a box. With a 396-card checklist, you have a good chance of pulling multiple Gretzky (or any other) cards. But remember, the cards are condition-sensitive; most won’t even be PSA 7 quality out of the pack.
1979 OPC Hockey Wax Box
Uncut sheets come to market from time to time as well. Robert Edward Auctions sold this complete set of 1979 O-Pee-Chee hockey cards on three uncut sheets (which obviously included the Gretzky rookie) for just over $20k in their spring 2019 auction. Sheets without the Gretzky rookie are significantly cheaper.
1979 OPC Hockey Complete Set on 3 Uncut Sheets
While the Gretzky card still dominates the public’s perception of the 1979 OPC Hockey set, as it should, the set has many other great features. Happy collecting!
Here are a pair of Topps Space Cards original artworks that Mastro offered in his June 2008 Classic Collector Auction.
Dating these is complicated. According to the Non-Sports Bible, the 1957 Topps Space Cards came out in 1957 with backs printed in black and blue tones, and their English version (U.K.) was printed in 1958 by A&BC. But there’s also a blue-colored back set issued in 1958 called “Target: Moon,” and Watson states that no one can say which was issued first, “Space” or “Target: Moon,” even though he dated the Space set to 1957. The salmon-colored backed cards were re-issued in 1967 as part of a game. However, in 2013, it seems like The Topps Archives settled on 1957 for Space Cards and 1958 for Target: Moon.
That said, it’s highly probable that just a single original artwork exists for each card. And for reference, a few others have sold for between $1,300 and $2,700. Also, “Testing A Space Pilot” is card #11, and “Robot Nears Moon” is card #8 in the 88-card set.
Every ’90s hobby magazine wrote a feature on Topps World Series cards; in October 1995, it was Trading Cards Magazine’s turn!
Here are the links to the pieces about Topps World Series cards that were published in Topps Magazine (Fall 1990) and Sports Cards Magazine (April 1995).
I don’t often dive into pre-war sets—they’re not my specialty. But when I spot an elusive premium issue in an old catalog with a ‘hobby-library adjacent’ aspect, it’s hard for me to ignore. Here’s a 1934 Gold Medal Foods set and its original envelope from Mastro’s December 2007 catalog.
Per The Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, the set was issued by Gold Medal Foods (the parent company of Wheaties) to commemorate the 1934 World Series. It includes six members of the Detroit Tigers and six members of the St. Louis Cardinals. The cards are blank-backed and 3-1/4” x 5-3/8” in size. The key card belongs to Dizzy Dean.
Here’s an SGC-graded Dizzy Dean card that REA sold for $300 in February 2022.
The set sold by Mastro included nine cards slabbed by SGC, and three more (Dizzy Dean, Goose Goslin, and Joe Medwick) were ungraded and labeled “factory miscut” by SGC.
The set’s history is a bit complicated, so I recommend checking out these two threads on the net54 forums for more information.
Today, I wanted to look back at and share information from the early days of Topps as a card company, particularly the Federal Trade Commission decision regarding a complaint made against Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., alleging unfair competition methods in gaining control of the baseball card picture industry.
Topps Chewing Gum Inc. FTC Decision
As you can see in the image above, the court dismissed the case on April 30, 1965, because there was insufficient evidence.
While the complaint uses a lot of legal jargon to allege a “monopoly in the manufacture and distribution of baseball picture cards in commerce,” as a collector, I find equally fascinating the reporting of sports card sales numbers from Topps, Bowman, Goudey, and Fleer.
First Goudey Sales:
Vintage Goudey Baseball Card Sales
Next Bowman Sales:
Vintage Bowman Baseball Card Sales
Topps sales in those years were as follows:
Early 50s Topps Baseball Card Sales
Topps sales once there were no Bowman cards were (“Baseball card gum” being packs with gum in them, and “Baseball cards” being products like vending boxes, cello, and rack packs that didn’t have gum):
1957-1961 Topps Baseball Card Sales
And finally, Fleer sales figures:
Vintage Fleer Baseball Card Sales
I’ll pour through this 112-page document in the future to see what other insights we can glean about the post-war baseball card market and the impact Topps’ actions as a company had on its competitors. That will come in the future as a Part 2 of this article. But these numbers are our best insight into figuring out how many cards Topps and other companies actually produced in the early post-war era.
Here’s the original artwork Dick Perez painted for the 1989 Donruss Frank Viola #23 Diamond Kings card.
Ron Oser Enterprises offered it in a lot with a few other signed Perez originals in April 2001. I think the piece is 11” x 17”. I previously shared the Mike Schmidt and Bobby Bonilla cards from this lot on the blog.
Here’s the final card, followed by a side-by-side comparison.
Donruss obviously did some cropping for the final card. Happy collecting, and don’t forget to check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!
