Baseball Cards

1971 Topps Baseball Wax Box Of 24 GAI-Graded Packs

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I love the Carpet o’ Wax Pack concept; here are twenty-four graded 1971 Topps baseball packs, each with a coin insert, that Mastro auctioned off as a single lot back in December 2005.

The twenty-four 10-cent packs came with this ~Ex condition wax box. The pack’s grades were as follows: Two were NM-MT 8, 17 were NM+ 7.5, four were NM 7s, and one was an EX-MT+ 6.5.

Packs are pricey these days; BBCE Auctions sold this PSA-8 graded 1971 Topps Baseball 1st Series Wax Pack for $6666.66 in April 2024.

In the same auction, BBCE sold this 2nd Series pack for $3033.81.

1952 Bowman Uncut Sheet Including Mickey Mantle

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Here’s a cool one from my hobby library auction catalog archives: a 1952 Bowman Uncut Production Sheet with Mickey Mantle (cards 73 through 108).

Mastro offered this one in their “Fine Sports Auctions” November 2000 catalog. It was described as a complete 36-card final production sheet. The sheet’s corners all showed wear consistent with a Very Good card, and a fairly heavy crease runs across the second row from the bottom, along with a few shorter creases and some wrinkling.

I don’t know what it sold for, but the minimum bid was $5k.

REA re-sold the sheet (you can tell from the crease on the Billy Hitchcock card – 2nd from the right on the bottom row) in their 2020 Spring catalog for $45,600.

1969 Topps Reverse Artwork Uncut Sheet With Clemente

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This 11 1/2’’ x 13 1/2’’ piece of original artwork originates from Guernsey’s Topps Auction of 1989 and features 12 drawings, including the one used on Roberto Clemente’s card 50.

The sheet’s 12 different drawings represent the cartoons and pieces of trivia used on the back of the following player’s cards: Davenport, LeMaster, Aguirre, Pappas, Taylor, Clemente, Barton, Versalles, McBean, Alou, Carroll, and Glass.

The auction featuring this item in December 2001 highlighted that the card number had been penned on the artwork and that a Topps Auction stamp was on the otherwise blank reverse.

Here’s the back of Clemente’s 1969 Topps card featuring the final cartoon and trivia.

ACU-Card – America’s First Independent Sports Card Grading Service

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I scanned this ad for ACU-Card from the Spring 1990 issue (Edition 2) of Topps Magazine. 

Frankly, dozens of third-party authenticators have come and gone. You can see a great list of them here on the Collectors forums. What I’m more interested in is where that 1952 Topps Mantle card is today (by the way, there’s no way it’s real).

I’ve read that a coin dealer named Alan Hager started the company. Many collectors have shared that he wasn’t really a high-integrity character. But If you want to add a piece of hobby history to your collection, you can still find a bunch of ACU-Card slabs on eBay.

15 1953 Topps Baseball 5 Cent Packs

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Mastro offered these fifteen 1953 Topps Unopened Five-Cent Wax Packs in his April 2004 auction, which included the OPC archives.

Global Authentication graded and encapsulated all the packs, and the breakdown was as follows: GAI EX+ 5.5: 7 packs; GAI EX 5: 8 packs.

I don’t know what the lot sold for, but there was a separate lot with just a single pack, and it sold for ~$12k.

And in case you were curious, here’s what a 1953 Topps 24-count 5-cent wax book looks like.

1935 R321 Goudey 4-in-1 Uncut Sheet of 6 cards

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An item you won’t see often, this one from Mastro’s December 2002 catalog, “a very scarce 6-1/2’’ x 7-3/4’’ final process uncut sheet that contains six 1935 Goudey cards on the front and a complete puzzle-back photo of Chuck Klein on the reverse.”

They wrote that the sheet was in VG condition with a tear near the upper left corner and a stain in the lower right.

The sheet features Dickey, Lazzeri, Ruffing, Vance, Traynor, and Ott.

The major auction houses have moved a few other R321 sheets over the years; Heritage sold this one with Foxx, Dean, and six other HoFers in November 2014 for $2868. 

Heritage also sold a panel with Babe Ruth and nine other HoFers in November 2014 for $4063.

And REA sold this twelve-card sheet (with the Detroit Tigers team on the back) for $8,812 in the spring of 2008.

1953 Bowman Color #33 Pee Wee Reese PSA 10

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Collectors often describe the 1953 Bowman Color Pee Wee Reese as one of the prettiest cards ever made. And there’s just a single Gem Mt 10 in PSA’s Pop Report. I ran across it in a Mastro Fine Sports Auctions catalog from May 2000.

Would this card be a “10” today? Who knows? Judging the card’s condition from a small catalog photo is tough. But they wrote that the card has a very faint rough cut along the top and bottom edges and said the image is centered at 55/45.