Baseball Cards

1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Featuring Mickey Mantle

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This 1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Ad Card featuring Mickey Mantle was auctioned off in August 2006.

It’s encapsulated as “authentic” by PSA and was used to drum up interest and give a sneak preview to dealers and collectors for the 1964 Topps Baseball series. The triptych (a picture or carving in three panels side by side) measures 7-9/16” x 3-1/2” with Mickey Mantle, Jim Davenport, and Boog Powell on the front. While the auction didn’t include a photo of the back, they described it as having information about the prospective series’ special features and insert products and also had a Mantle card back as a design example.

Heritage resold the same item in December 2020 for $7,200; they wrote, “One of the fuels that drove the Topps machine was the salesman sample. They featured three cards but had Topps sales propaganda or a sticker selling the set on the reverse. For their 1964 effort, they wisely picked baseball’s best in HoFer Mickey Mantle to promote the upcoming 587-card series. Mantle is joined by fellow major leaguers Jim Davenport and Boog Powell but it is Mantle’s card used for the reverse example.”

If you own any salesman samples, I’d love to chat with you about them for my research.

The R326 Goudey Flip Movies Set

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Sotheby’s offered a set of 26 (plus the 2 DiMaggio variations) R326 Goudey Flip Movies booklets in its April 1994 auction, with an expected price of $3.5k—$4k; an aggressive ask since Tom Reid found a bunch of these in the late 80s, though this was the nicest copy.

They described the lot as a circa 1937 (today some folks say 1938, others 1937-1938) complete set of 26 plus the 2 “extremely rare” variations of Joe Dimaggio picturing brother Vince. They mentioned that Goudey mistakenly used Vince’s picture instead of Joe’s but quickly corrected it so few are seen around the hobby today. 

Each cover has a portrait and is either blue, black, or green. In the set, each player is represented twice in two parts. They also directly mentioned Tom Reid’s Find of thumb movies several years previously, but this was the finest set known to exist, mostly in mint condition.

I mentioned that the $3,500-$4,000 price range looked aggressive because Robert Edward Auctions re-sold what I think is the exact same set of Goudey flip movies in 2017 for just $1,560.

Here’s REA’s complete set description: 

Issued in 1937-1938 by Goudey Gum, and catalogued R326 in the ACC, this unusual set is printed as small booklets (2 x 3 inches) and was designed to be viewed as a flip book with each player featured in action either batting, throwing, or fielding. There are thirteen different players each produced in two booklets (part 1 and 2) to capture the whole in-action scene. The front cover of each booklet features a portrait image of the specific player and a brief biography of the player on the back cover. Offered is an exceptional high-grade and rarely offered complete 26-booklet set, plus two error variations (two Joe DiMaggio booklets picture an image of his brother Vince by mistake), for a total of twenty-eight booklets. This is the first complete set of this unusual issue that we have ever offered! Goudey selected the greatest stars of the day for inclusion in this unusual set. Rarely does a set have such a high concentration of major stars. More than half the players featured are members of the Hall of Fame (two booklets of each): Luke Appling, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, Jimmy Foxx, Joe Medwick, Mel Ott, and Paul Waner. This is a tremendous set of R326 Goudey “Big League Baseball Movies,” clean and crisp across the board, and it should be stressed that all have an Excellent or better appearance. Most examples graded less than Ex have been downgraded due to very technical concerns, such as a very light crease or tiny tear. It is remarkable that the set has survived in such extraordinary condition. As made, five of the booklets do not have a staple binding it together. This is by far the finest set that we have ever seen, and it most likely originated from Tom Reid’s famous find of thumb movies back in the late 1980s. For years, this has been one of the most overlooked of all 1930s gum issues because grading companies simply did not have holders for this set, but that has very recently changed with the introduction of holders by Beckett that now allow for professional grading and encapsulation of this issue. This is an outstanding complete set (plus two variations) of this rare and condition-sensitive issue. Total: 28 booklets. Reserve $300. Estimate $1,000++.

The set’s price has crept up as the hobby has boomed over the past few years; I’ve seen one move for more than $3k in 2023. Also, I think if PSA or SGC started slabbing these, the set’s price would skyrocket. And, just because I used to have an unopened archive here on the site, here’s an R326 wrapper that Heritage sold for $90 in 2017.

1972 Puerto Rican Winter League Sticker Album And Complete Set

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There isn’t much known about the 1972 Puerto Rican Winter League sticker set, but the albums and sets, which are ‘hobby library historically significant,’ still command a pretty penny when they pop up for sale. REA & eBay offered this one in their July 2000 catalog.

The complete set consists of 231 cards/stickers with a few composite subsets, including card #’s 198-206, which form a photo of Roberto Clemente. Just FYI, some collectors have questioned the set’s 1972 dating and suspect that it may have come out in early 1973; if you own a copy, let me know if there’s any copyright dating inside.

The league included a lot of Major Leaguers looking to brush up on their playing skills during the winter months, often Puerto Rican players and folks at the very beginning or end of their careers. Stars included in this set include Rich Gossage, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, and Frank Robinson (as manager of Santurce), along with Felix Millan, Willie Montanez, Sixto Lezcano, Steve Rogers, Sandy Alomar, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Zisk, Jose Pagan, Elrod Hendricks, Juan Pizzaro, and Ron Cey. But the most significant card in this set is Mike Schimdt’s pre-rookie. REA sold this PSA 8.5 in their Spring 2019 auction for $1,320.

The set also includes a few famous game veterans, like Satchel Paige; they have their own section in the album.

The “Veteranos Famosos Del Baseball” scan above is from a complete album that Leland’s Auctions sold for $1,558.50 in November 2023. They explained that the album has 44 pages, including the covers, and measures 6.4” x 8.75”. All the stickers were “carefully” attached. Here are the front and back covers of Leland’s album.

Paying Through The Nose For A 1947 Tip-Top Bread Mike Tresh Card

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I ran across this hilarious want ad in the April 1977 issue of The Trader Speaks from a collector looking for a 1947 Tip-Top Bread MIke Tresh card.

Bill Haber wrote that he had 162 different Tip-Tops. If you weren’t tracking, there are 163 cards in the regionally distributed set, so he was missing just one, hence his desire to “pay through the nose” for it.

After a quick online search, I only found a single example. This one was part of a lot of eight 1947 Tip-Top Bread A.L. and N.L. Chicago players. Heritage sold the lot for $74 in June 2009.

PSA has only graded three examples, including this one, which resides in the top-rated set on the registry.

1966 Topps Baseball Uncut Blank-Back Proof Sheet

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Here’s a great item from the days of auction past: a 1966 Topps baseball full uncut blank-back proof sheet featuring 11 Hall of Famers.

Mastro offered this one in their May 2008 Sports & Americana auction catalog and included the following description:

An incredible eye-catcher, this very scarce uncut sheet offers unrivaled star power! With its content derived from the issue’s 2nd Series, the 132-card proof sheet’s roster is filled with Hall of Famers, including Alston, Banks (2), Brock (2), Cepeda, Ford (2), Killebrew, Morgan and the rookie card of Palmer. Measuring approximately 28″ x 43″ the blank-backed item’s fully printed obverse depictions are arranged in an 11-card-by-12-card configuration. The sheet presents about EX display quality, and reflects inevitable, scattered surface wrinkling (affecting many individual subjects, including one Brock, one Banks and the Killebrew designs) and marginal faults incurred during factory handling and rolled storage.

REA sold a proof sheet with the same card layout in the Spring of 2021 for $2,880. After reading about the condition and inspecting the paper loss and borders, it’s likely the same sheet Mastro had offered 13 years earlier.

Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!

1969 (Or 1968) Topps Deckle Edge Test Set Uncut Sheet

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Here’s a pretty cool item that Mastro auctioned off in March 2000: a 1969 Topps Test Set Uncut Sheet.

There are nine players on the sheet, including Carl Yastrzemski. However, Topps only used the Yaz image in the deckle-edge insert set that year. The auction description pointed out that the deckle-edge cards use similar black-and-white images with the player’s signatures across the bottom third of the cards, so it’s likely that this heavy cardboard sheet was made in that issue’s preparation. And since uncut deckle-edge sheets show identical card layouts and spacing, it’s possible this one was an early proof.

In an article about 2018 Heritage cards, SABR wrote a few words about these proof sheets, “I discovered that Topps did a test run for deckle edge in ’68 that was never distributed. There are uncut proof pages and singles with blank backs that have blue, black and red autographs. Apparently, Topps wanted to see which color looked the most realistic. By the way, the O-Pee-Chee deckle cards used black ink for autographs. Interestingly, the proof sheets contain nine images, only one of which was used in ‘69: Carl Yastrzemski. The rest of the players (Dave Adlesh, Hank Aguire, Sandy Alomar, Bob Johnson, Claude Osteen, Juan Pizzaro, Hal Woodeschick and Sonny Jackson–who is depicted on the Colt ‘45s) appear to have been randomly selected. Only Osteen could have reasonable been considered a star in 1968.”

For reference, here’s a proof sheet of 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards, representing two complete 33-card sets, that REA sold in the spring of 2021 for $600.

Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!

1921 W551 Babe Ruth/Ty Cobb Strip Card Pairing

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The awesome thing about flipping through old catalogs is running across random cards and sets that pique your curiosity and make you learn more about the hobby; that’s precisely what happened when I saw this 1921 W551 Babe Ruth/Ty Cobb Strip in Mastro’s August 2006 catalog.

This example is graded 88 NM/MT 8 by SGC, but I found the 1922 date on the slab and the auction’s title interesting. I used to collect Babe Ruth strip cards and swore this was a 1921 card. So I double-checked Old Cardboard and PSA, and they both date the W551 set to 1921, and it turns out SGC does now as well. Weird…

After some more research, I learned that, if anything, someone could reasonably confuse these W551s with W514s since nine of the 10 baseball player strip card poses are the same. However, the text below the picture is a little different, and Ruth’s picture is entirely different.

Anywho, back to W551, here’s PSA’s set profile: 

The 1921 W551 baseball card set consists of 10 cards, each measuring approximately 1-3/8” x 3-1/4”. The unnumbered cards were printed in strips, with each front revealing a color drawing of a National Pastime hero. The player’s name and team name are printed in the bottom margin. The backs are blank. The W551 set is made up of Frank Baker, Dave Bancroft, Jess Barnes, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Wally Pipp, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, Tris Speaker, and Casey Stengel. Ruth’s example is by far the most desirable item.

And here are a few more W551 fun facts:

  • The cards are 1 3/8″ x 2 1/4″ (but vary drastically from hand cutting).
  • The set has 40 cards (boxers, other sports, movie stars) but only ten baseball cards, but it does have Gene Sarazen (golf) and W. Tilden’s (tennis) rookie cards, which are pricier than you’d think
  • 8/10 of the baseball players are Hall of Famers
  • There are really good reprints with blue labeling; there are also a lot of fake two-card strips (including fake Ruth/Cobb pairs)
  • The cards came in strips of 10

Also, despite there being a ton of them out there, including 13 Ruth/Cobb Panels from PSA and 8 from SGC, 168 PSA and 91 SGC Ruth strips, and 139 PSA Cobb and 76 SGC strips, these cards aren’t cheap. Happy collecting!