Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
I can never get enough of 1952 Topps, so when I stumbled on Ted Taylor’s “Milestones” article from the September ’87 Baseball Cards Magazine, I knew I had to share it. Classic read!
I wish I could still get a high-quality set for $23,000, like in 1987! Also, the author mentioned picking up 1952 Topps cello packs the following summer in ’53; I’ve heard about this before and will dig deeper, maybe for a future Unopened Market Report Newsletter. Anywho, here’s the entire piece.
Happy collecting!
Even in 1995, collectors looked back at old card prices and wondered, “What if?” Jon Brecka dives into one such case in Trading Cards Magazine (May 1995) with “Just How Great Are Gretzky’s Rookie Cards?”
Happy collecting!
Here’s another cool uncut sheet from the hobby library archives, a 1973 Topps Test Candy Lid Uncut Sheet. This one was offered as lot 389 in Christie’s East Sports Memorabilia Auction in October 1992.
The sheet includes stars like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Carlton Fisk, and Nolan Ryan. It was described as being in near mint condition and carried and had an estimated value of $700-800.
The Standard Catalog described the set as “a bit out of the ordinary, the Topps Candy Lids were the top of a product called ‘Baseball Stars Bubble Gum.’ The bottom (inside) of the lids carry a color photo of a player with a ribbon containing the name, position and team. The lids are 1-7/8” in diameter. A total of 55 different lids were made featuring most of the stars of the day.”
Here are a few examples.
There are also several slabbed and unslabbed proofs on the market, so I wonder if someone cut up the sheet.
Let me know what you think in the comments and don’t forget to check out more uncut sheets on the archive. Happy collecting!
Topps Magazine had a feature called Topps In The Field dedicated to news from around the collecting world; in the summer of 92, they included this piece about collectible pins, specifically the Hermes Ice Cream Honus Wagner from the Copeland Collection!
I’ve only started learning about sports pins, so I’m not an expert. Luckily, I do have Sotheby’s Copeland Catalog Topps was referring to. Here’s a scan of the pin from the catalog.
And here’s how Sotheby’s described the Hermes Ice Cream Pin lot that included the Wagner:
Hermes Ice Cream Pins, 1910, lot of 4 different pins, set features the 1909 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates, black and white portraits, yellow border with a blue flag “Pittsburgh” and yellow skull and cross bones at bottom, Hermes logo across the top, players not identified, unnumbered, made by Whitehead and Hoag, the lot includes Leach and Abstein (both only good condition due to excessive surface wear), Clarke-Manager and Hall of Famer (near mint) and Honus Wagner (minor edge stains near the word cream on the right—also minor surface scratches) still a very significant pin and at least excellent condition. 1¼ in. diameter (4) Hermes Ice Cream pins are very rare. Honus Wagner is one of the finest early pins and is highly coveted by collectors.
The expected sales price in the catalog was $2,000-$2,500; Topps wrote that it sold for $2,975.
Regarding the Wagner pin specifically, PSA has only encapsulated two examples and graded one a seven and the other a three. And neither looks like the Copeland pin to me.
Here’s some of the sale’s history: Heritage sold the seven for $6,120 in December 2019. REA then resold it for $9k in the Summer of 2021. REA sold the three for $2,160 in the Spring of 2019 before reselling it in the Fall of 2024 for $3,840.
Happy collecting!
Here’s a great piece put together by Jon Brecka for the November 1994 issue of Trading Cards magazine, ranking baseball’s top ten most sought-after cards. Thirty years later, it’s hard to argue against! Would you trade any out?
Here are cards 6-10.
How many people do you think have all ten “All-Time Greats?” What a collection that would be!
Happy collecting!
Here’s a historically significant ad TCMA placed in the April 1972 issue of The Trader Speaks—one of their first as a newly incorporated company that year.
Unfortunately, I’m unaware of a definitive source of TCMA sets and checklists; the major catalogs are all missing at least a handful. That said, The Standard Catalog does include the 504-card 1972 TCMA The 1930’s set. Here’s what they wrote about it:
Extending to over 500 cards, this was one of TCMA’s first ventures into the business of creating collectors’ edition card sets of former players. Over the length of the series there were a number of style differences. The set was issued in 21 series of 24 cards each. All cards were printed in black-and-white (except for Series 18-19 printed in blue) and feature player photos on usually borderless fronts. Dimensions were about 2” x 2-3/4” for most series, with Series 15-16 in a 2-1/2” x 3-1/2” format. Except for a TCMA copyright line on some of the earlier cards, there is no other printing on the front. Back have player identification, team affiliations, TCMA copyright and, after #72, a card number. Production is reported as 1,000 sets. Blank-back version and uncut panels of 12 exist.
But there’s another great source of information for the 1930’s and reprint sets from TCMA’s ad, and that’s Bert Sugar’s 1975 The Sports Collectors Bible.
And why is that? Well, Mike Aronstein wrote the section on “Collectors’ Issues!”
He’d have had a good idea three years later what he printed! Here’s the intro that he wrote:
Next, in the first two pages of the 1930s set, notice that the first three are described as unnumbered, and Aaronstein included information about distribution. Series No. 1 was issued separately, with 2 through 19 issues in pairs.
A few pages later, on the bottom of page 346, Aronstein included information about the company’s reprint sets. Some of these are mentioned in The Trader Speaks advertisement.
Happy collecting!
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.
Happy collecting!