Non-Sport Cards

1887 Allen & Ginter Store Display Advertising Poster

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In July 2000, Robert Edward Auctions & eBay presented The Wagner Card as the featured item in their internet/telephone auction. But the auction was LOADED and included this amazing 1887 Allen & Ginter Store Display Advertising Poster.

Here’s the lot’s full description:

This poster advertises the very first full color baseball card set ever issued, the classic N28 Allen & Ginter Tobacco set of “Worlds Champions” Allen & Ginter, and competitor Goodwin & Company were the first to introduce the novelty of baseball cards as advertising inserts in the late 1880’s when they included one card in each pack of tobacco to encourage the sale of their products and to promote brand loyalty. This poster advertises the very first Allen & Ginter set to feature baseball players. It features illustrations of all ten baseball cards in the set, plus the cards of all forty additional sporting champions of the day which comprise this historic set. The ten baseball players include Hall of Famers Cap Anson, John Clarkson, Charles Comiskey, Tim Keefe, Mike “King” Kelly, and John M. Ward, as well as noted stars Charles Bennett, Robert Caruthers, Jack Glasscock and Joseph Mulvey. Other famous athletes in the set include Nineteenth Century boxing champions Jack Dempsey and Jake Kilrain. Printed in full color, this advertising poster was produced utilizing the highest caliber chromolithographic printing techniques of the era. One of the most attractive and significant of all baseball display pieces, this poster was supplied by Allen & Ginter only to tobacco stores, and was designed to hang in these shops for the purpose of announcing the landmark “World Champions” card set of 1887. To the best of our knowledge, there are only five N28 Allen & Ginter posters known to exist. Of these, it is our opinion that this example is in the finest condition. Extremely bright, crisp, and clean; close examination reveals a few small creases; with minor professional restoration; still overall Excellent condition. 28″ x 16″ Museum backed and framed. Value references: To date, according to our research, there has never been an N28 Allen & Ginter poster sold at auction. In the 1930’s Jefferson Burdick made note of this poster in The American Card Catalog (which was the first price guide and the publication that originally introduced the catalog reference numbers such as T206, R319, etc, which are still in use to this day). Assigning the N28 Allen & Ginter poster the catalog reference code “G20”, Burdick valued the poster in the 1930’s at what was then the shocking sum of $15, making this the second most valuable baseball item listed in the entire American Card Catalog, trailing only the T206 Wagner (which was valued at $50).

I’ve found a few other sales, including a pair from Heritage Auctions; this first one sold for $15,535 in April 2010.

This next one went for $9,000 in August 2017.

Between those sales, in January 2014, Lelands sold a restored copy for $18,752.

Hobby Library decoration goals!

1952 Topps Wings 5-Cent Wax Box

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You’ll occasionally find a 1952 Topps Wings cello pack for sale, but wax is far scarcer. So I was pretty surprised when I ran across this nearly complete 5-cent wax box from an April 2004 auction catalog.

This lot was for a “marvelously well-preserved, two-part Wings display box that once held thirty-six 5-cent packs of the aviation-themed treasures. Thirty of the unopened wax packs are still nestled inside and, with their 8” x 5-5/8”x 1-1/2” lidded counter-sales box, they recreate the vision of a confectioners display from more than a half-century ago.”

The box was described as Near Mint and the packs as Excellent to Mint. The lot also included this flattened wrapper.

As far as I can tell, PSA has only slabbed two 1952 Topps Wings wax packs: the following PSA 7 and another graded 8, which includes a 5-cent designation on the flip. There are 30 cello packs in the Pop Report.

However, The Baseball Card Exchange did offer this “1952 Topps Wings Wax Unopened Box (1 Cent)(120 Packs)” for sale on their website for $16k a while ago, and there are a few GAI-slabbed wax packs, too.

1965 Topps Battle Five-Cent Proof Wrapper

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This is a one-of-a-kind production relic for the five-cent wrapper for the 1965 Topps Battle series. Ex-Topps Vault.

I presume Mastro was the first auction house to sell this item after the consignor acquired it from Topps Vault. They wrote it up as printed on glossy paper, measuring 11-1/8” x 10” with penciled-in editorial notes. 

After a quick Google search and perhaps a few more owners (who knows!), Hake’s Auctions re-sold it in March 2013 for $172. The editorial note on this scan says, “Fill in white shots on blue plate” referring to the white dots above the black square advertising an “Extra Military Emblem In Each Pack.”

While the following 1965 Topps Battle wrapper has a different advertisement on the left-hand side, the white dots were removed.

Hake’s included the following scan of the official COA from the Topps Vault.

1967 Topps “Who Am I” Unopened Wax Box

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I shared a nifty 1967 Topps Who Am I Proof Paul McCartney card the other day; on the same page of the auction (two lots later) was one of the remaining unopened boxes!

It remains a pricey box; REA sold one for $5925 in their Spring 2013 catalog.

More recently, BBCE offered this one on their site, which they authenticated, for $29k.

For completeness, here’s a wax wrapper.

1967 Topps Who Am I Proof Of Paul McCartney

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I ran across this 1967 Topps “Who Am I?”-style test proof card of Paul McCartney in Mastro’s American Premier Catalog Auction that featured the “Topps West Coast Archive.”

You can see that GAI graded the card as Mint 9 and added the “1st Graded” notation. Goldin sold another McCartney proof card with a “1st Graded” notation in January 2021 for $540, but curiously, it’s graded NM-MT 8. I suppose there are subtle differences in the quote block (like the Fred Newman cards pictured below).

The set’s checklist ended up at 44, but Topps did a lot of experimenting. In the spring of 2017, REA sold an uncut sheet of the test issue for $1680. In the description, they wrote, “Presented on this sheet are twelve cards (printed twice) which were not included in the final production of the set, and were created by Topps specifically as test proof cards. These twelve cards never saw public distribution, and were produced utilizing materials for internal use only, as a test design concept for a set that was, of course, fully executed.”

Notice the 1967 Topps Baseball cards?

The sheet features Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, two different poses of Lyndon B. Johnson (one as Senator and one as President), Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Bob Bruce, Dean Chance, Al Dark, Jimmie Hall, Lee Elia, and Fred Newman.

REA has also sold a handful of GAI-graded proof cards with the same GAI notations as the McCartney and a pair in Topps Vault cases.

1969 Topps And O-Pee-Chee Man on the Moon Wax Boxes

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Non-sport seems to be getting a lot of hype these days, so I thought I’d share this cool auction from April 2004 of a 1969 Topps and O-Pee-Chee “Man on the Moon” wax boxes! As the lot said, space exploration was at the forefront of the nation’s consciousness during the late 1960’s.

The 1969 Topps Man on the Moon 24-count display box contained 24 ten-cent wax packs, while the 1969 O-Pee-Chee Man on the Moon box originally contained 36 5-cent packs (the box in this auction was incomplete with just 30 packs).

“Real Photos Of Men On The Moon!”