I ran across these circa 1970 Calvin Murphy and Fran Tarkenton “prototype” cards in Ron Oser Enterprises’ April 2000 auction catalog.
I’m unsure what to make of these items; the lot’s description explained that they appeared to be Topps prototype cards that were never issued.
The basketball card features Calvin Murphy of the San Diego Rockets, who moved to Houston before the 1971/72 season started. The writer said the style and size of the card were similar to those of the 1969/70 and 1970/71 Topps issues.
The football card features Fran Tarkenton as a New York Giants player, where he played from 1967-1971.
Both cards were still adhered to the original artist board and were described as being in perfect condition.
Let me know if you know anything about these items.
Here’s another historic hoops item: a 1970/71 Topps basketball uncut sheet.
This one features three Pete Maravich rookies, and when it was sold in 2008 by Mastro Auctions, it was the only known example (I’m unsure if this is still true; there are definitely some partial sheets).
The sheet contains 99 fully printed Topps Tall Boy basketball cards from 1970/71 in a 9 x 11 card arrangement. On top of the three Maravich cards are thee each for West, Frazier, Robertson (AS), Baylor (AS), Havlicek (AS), and Cunningham.
Despite some surface creasing and minor issues around the periphery, the sheet was described as being in excellent condition.
The sheet was actually sold by Huggins and Scott Auctions in October 2007 for $4600 before making its way into Mastro’s a few months later.
I suspect the copy from Christopher Sanchirico’s collection is the same one.
And that sheet appears to be for sale on eBay (in May 2024) for $250k.
You can read more about the 1970 Topps Basketball set’s uncut sheets on one of my favorite hobby blogs, The Topps Archives.
When you ask a collector to name a Larry Bird card, odds are they will either mention the 1980 Topps Bird, Erving, Johnson triple, or his 1986 Fleer card since they’re two of the most expensive. But collectors who tackle multiple basketball sets will tell you what a tough find a nice 1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird is.
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird Front
1987 Fleer Larry Bird #11 Reverse
It’s widely accepted that the 1987 Fleer set was printed in significantly lower quantities than its 1986 Fleer predecessor. So that already limits the population of Larry’s card in what is a pretty popular set. Then, when you inspect the population report, you will find that the card is super tough to find in high-grade condition.
Of 3075 graded (August 2024), there are only 33 10s (387 9s and 1195 8s). Less than 1% of Bird’s 1987 Fleer cards are Gem Mt 10s. When you compare that to other cards in the set with over 1k regular grades, you can see that only Barkley has a (slightly) more difficult hit rate with PSA 10s. However, the Bird is slightly tougher when combining PSA 9 and 10 populations.
25/3000+ Barkley’s have graded PSA 10, 46/2000+ Ewing’s, 58/3200+ Johnson’s, 215/19500+ Jordan’s, 153/2400+ Malone’s, and 40/3000+ Olajuwon cards.
The Larry Bird is such a tough grade because so many copies have poor centering and registry issues. But why is that? The common belief has to do with the set being printed in 132-card sheets, with 12 rows of 11 cards across. Bird, card #11, was believed to be the last card in the top row (upper right corner), which means it was susceptible to cutting problems.
Despite my reach on social media and throughout the hobby, I couldn’t find a photo of an uncut sheet for a long time. But then I was forwarded a link to a bunch of images from Christopher Sanchirico’s collection, and he owned one! Unfortunately, the image size is small, but you can see the Bird in the upper right corner. In the image’s description, he wrote, “This is one of the only uncut sheets to ever have surfaced from this year (correct me if I’m wrong). Super rare, very colorful, and over 30 years old!”
1987 Fleer Basketball Uncut Sheet
Next, you can see a pair of miscut Bird cards.
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird – Off Center / Miscut
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird – Off Center / Miscut
Even the first of the three PSA 10 Birds pictured below looks surprisingly off-center for a perfect 10 grade.
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird
1987 Fleer #11 Larry Bird
With the surge and dip of the basketball card market over the past few years, it’s a bit tough to say what these high-grade 1987 Fleer Birds are valued at now. PSA’s Auction Prices Realized for the card show the last two sales being $3,300 in November 2022 and $3,750 in September 2022, but they were over $5k in February 2021 (up to $7500). Those 10s were between $1000 and $1500 between August and November 2020 and about $1200 in May 2020. PSA 9s sold for between $260 and $339 this summer, but they were around $140 in May 2020. PSA 8s have settled around $45, which is where they were in May 2020.
Larry Bird is one of the NBA’s all-time greats who achieved every career highlight or award the league has. His popularity continues today, as seen in the demand for his cards. And while you can’t go wrong adding a 1980 Topps or 1986 Fleer Larry Bird card to your collection (they’re pretty liquid in high grade), his 1987 Fleer card will be a bit more challenging for the condition-focused collector.
Christie’s offered this incredible Junge’s Bread For Energy advertising poster in their October 1993 Sports Memorabilia catalog auction. These are some of the toughest cards to find in the hobby.
Christie’s described the Bread For Energy Label Advertising Poster as follows:
The scarcest of all sports bread end label sets is the 48 label “Bread For Energy” set. It includes 16 Movie Stars, 16 Western Stars and 16 Sports Stars four each of boxing, basketball, wrestling, and football. This rare advertisement for Jungle Bread contains an uncut sheet of 16 labels in color including the following sports subjects, Johnny Lujack, Buddy Young, Kid Gailan, Joe Fulks, Gene Stanlee and the very rare Rocky Marciano. In excellent to mint condition.
The expected price was $1,800-2,200.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much information available about the set. While Christie’s said the set has 48 labels, Beckett’s online directory says the set has 44 cards, while the seller of the following sheet on eBay says 42. And if this is the D290-12 set, my American Card Catalog says there are 64 cards.
That seller on eBay wrote,
This 14 inch by 22 inch magnificent piece of sports and movie nostalgia is the only known, uncut bread-end label sheet and advertising poster for the 1950-51 D290-12 “Bread For Energy” series of 42 different multi-sport and Hollywood celebrities. The labels were distributed on the ends of loafs of various brands of breads & bakeries. Junge’s Bread was not previously known as a D290-12 bread label bakery brand and this advertising poster is as fresh and beautiful as the day it was printed and prepared in 1950.
A 16-card, 11 inch by 11 inch, uncut sheet of 16 different bread labels, which were originally exclusively identified with Fischer’s bread, have been affixed to a cardboard poster. These Junge’s Bread, “Bread for Energy labels” are brand new except for a slight crease that runs from Bing Crosby’s head to the bottom of the William Bendix label. The Kid Gavilan, Edgar Bergan, Joe Fulks are all affected. The sheet contains 3 of the 5 keys to the set including Johnny Lujack, Joe Fulks, and most importantly, a rookie issue of Rocky Marciano.
Curiously, they wrote that their poster, with an asking price of $10k, is the only known piece, when there is another one on eBay with an asking price of $6k, and none of the three, compared to Christie’s, look the same.
Also, Leland’s has sold three of these Junge’s Bread-style posters. The first two have the same look as the previous three I’ve shared; the first sold for $1,364 in December 2020, and the second sold for $1,240 in February 2021 (this appears to be the $10k eBay one).
However, Lelands also sold this Junge’s Bread for Energy poster for $1,364 in April 2021. Notice that it has a few different cards on it!
If you want to see more examples of the cards, BMW Sports Cards has a nice directory. If you know anything else about them, please get in touch with me.
Who doesn’t love a scarce vintage regional basketball issue?! Here’s an “ultra-complete” set of 13 1970-71 Phoenix Suns A1 cards.
Mastro offered this grouping in their November 2000 Fine Sports Auctions catalog with a minimum bid of $500. They explained that the scarce advertising cards were produced as six-pack inserts with A1 Premium Beer depicting Suns players in black-and-white photographs, formatted underneath a logo and price header, and distributed in only a very limited regional area. They then started talking a bit about the ten players in the set, plus the variations, but my 2003 Standard Catalog of Basketball Cards (6th Edition) explains it better with a checklist.
That Tuff Stuff guide explains that the cards measure 2-1/4” x 8-3/4” overall and
…feature a black-and-white photo of the player and his name printed beneath the photo at the bottom of the card. The top of the card features “Phoenix Suns picture special,” the A-1 Premium Beer logo and either a 95-cent price (most common), 98 cents (harder to locate) and no price printed. The player photo measures 2-1/4” x 3-3/8” and showcase the player in a posed position. The backs are blank and unnumbered.
Here’s the complete checklist:
Mel Counts (95 cents)
Mel Counts (98 cents)
Lamar Green
Clem Haskins
Connie Hawkins (98 cents)
Greg Howard
Paul Silas
Fred Taylor
Dick Van Arsdale (Error – reversed negative, no price)
Dick Van Arsdale (Corrected – no price)
Neal Walk (95 cents)
Neal Walk (No price)
John Wetzel (No price)
That Tuff Stuff Standard Basketball catalog priced a near-mint complete set at $1950 in 2003, and the prices appear to have stood up.
The following 12-card set is available on eBay (July 2024) for $3,600 from BMW Sports Cards and Memorabilia.
Scottsdale Baseball Cards has the following complete 13-card master set available on its site (and eBay) for $2,500.
However, Goldin sold the following 12/13 near master set, graded by SGC, for only $420 in June 2022. However, at the time, they wouldn’t have been my top choice for selling a set like this.
That Goldin set was also missing the Dick Van Arsdale error, which is one of the tougher cards. The priciest, though, is the Connie Hawkins.
If you’re looking for a graded sample, PSA has only slabbed 67 in total.
PS, while the cards say “12 oz. Bottles” on the front, if you want to augment a collection of them, think about hunting down these four A1 Premium Beer cans; from 1967-1974, the Phoenix Roadrunners were a WHL team.
Morean Auctions sold the pictured lot of empty beer cans for $527 in September 2023.
“How can you say you’ve got the whole set when you haven’t got what it came in?” Here’s Ed Henderson’s look at the collectibility of wrappers from the November 1992 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine.
PS: I’d love to see a resurgence of multi-page hobby writing like this today.
So many of us overlook card backs in this day of hard plastic card encapsulation and grading, so I was super happy to find an article dedicated to them while perusing the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine.
Baseball Cards Magazine – September 1991
Jim McLauchlin penned an article titled “Card Backs,” in which he celebrated the reverse side of cards. He kicked it off by stating that he likes card backs more than he likes card fronts! Here are the first two pages of the article.
Card Backs – Jim McLauchlin
He talks about the plethora of data that has been included on them, chats about some growing pains in card back design in our hobby’s history before digging into the real story, the specific card back highlights over the past 50 years of sports cards that he jokingly called “the first quasi annual Sy Berger Awards for Card Back Excellence (or Lack Thereof).”
I thought the Set Awards were so well-researched and accurate that they deserved to be shared with folks who don’t have junk-wax-era card magazine back issues, so I’ll share a highlight card from many of the categories before sharing the rest of the article.
Best Cartoons: 1977-78 Topps Basketball
He noted their incredible variety.
1977 Topps Swen Nater
I’ll also note that Guernsey’s sold a lot of original card cartoon art in the 1989 Topps Auction.
Topps Basketball Cartoons – The Topps Auction 1989
Best Cartoon Theme: 1974 Topps Football
Leisure-time activities.
1974 Topps Ken Stabler
Best Back Photography
Anything by Upper Deck.
1991 Upper Deck Jose Lind
Best Narratives
1955 Bowman Baseball.
1955 Bowman Vern Law
Best Non-Use of the Word “Defenseman”
1990-91 Pro Set Hockey for using terms like rugged blue liners, crafty blue liners, veteran blue liners, and bruising blue liners.
Best Bios
1961 Fleer Football.
1961 Fleer Gene Lipscomb
Word Card Back Idea
Puzzles.
Worst Use of Stats
Classic.
Best Quote
1990 Score Football Johnny Johnson.
1990 Score Johnny Johnson
Best Trivia
1975 Topps Carlton Fisk.
1975 Topps Carlton Fisk
Best Prophecy
1958 Topps Sandy Koufax.
1958 Topps Sandy Koufax
Best Cartoon
1971 Topps Football Spider Lockhart.
1971 Topps Spider Lockhart
Best Overused Bio Material
He challenged readers to find a Joe Nuxhall card that didn’t say he was the youngest player in the majors.
Best Obscure Information
1990 Pro Set Football Chris Singleton.
1990 Pro Set Chris Singleton
Worst Use of Stats
1971 Topps Football Charlie Krueger.
1971 Topps CHarlie Krueger
Best Hobby
1958 Topps Stan Lopata.
1958 Topps Stan Lopata
Best Expansion of Standard Height, Weight
1963 Topps Dick Radatz.
1963 Topps Dick Radatz
Best Culinary Card
1974-75 Topps Basketball Louis Dampier.
1974 Topps Louie Dampier
Best We’ll Find Something Nice To Say About This Spud If It Kills Us