A Bobby Bonilla Advertisement For Ultra PRO Platinum Hologram Pages

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Bobby Bonilla was a spokesman for Ultra PRO in early 1992. Do you think they’re still paying him today, like the Mets?

If you weren’t tracking:

After being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers part way through the 1998 season, he signed with the New York Mets for a second time in 1999. When the Mets wanted to release him at the end of the year, he negotiated a settlement whereby the Mets would pay him $1.19 million on July 1 every year from 2011 through 2035, a date that has become known in Mets fandom as “Bobby Bonilla Day”. He is also paid $500,000 by the Orioles every year from 2004 to 2028 due to them also having a deferred contract with him.

Wikipedia

PS, I scanned the Ultra PRO advertisement from the April 1992 issue of Trading Cards Magazine.

UCLA Legends Limited Edition Signed Lithograph

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I scanned this advertisement for a ‘limited edition signed lithograph honoring the most dominating collegiate basketball force in history’ from Alan Kayes Sports Cards News & Price Guides Number 5 from April 1992.

Just 2,500 of these 26” x 43” lithographs were printed, and all were signed by Coach Wooden and six of the Bruins’ all-time basketball greats: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Gail Marques Johnson, Keith Erickson, and Mike Warren. Historical Properties priced them at $595.

Today, quite a few are available on eBay; ‘Mill Creek Sports’ has ten, each for $599.

‘Magical World of Sports’ is offering a framed copy for $799.99, ‘AutographForSale’ has one for $899.99, and ‘dary.holl’ has another with an asking price of $1k. I haven’t seen any copies sold on eBay, though.

A Complete SGC-graded 1967 Topps Venezuela Retirado Series Set

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Putting together a complete run of 1967 Topps Venezuela Retirado cards is pretty hard, particularly ones in decent condition, making this complete set of 50 that were auctioned off together in April 2006 all the more impressive.

The lot description noted that Pat Quinn assembled the set one card at a time and upgraded it during his half-dozen 1980s buying trips to Venezuela. This set’s makeup included three cards graded as sevens, four sixes, four 5.5s, 14 fives, 19 fours, and six threes.

PSA’s Pop Report shows around 15-35 graded samples of each card in the set, with the majority graded in the 1-2 range. SGC has graded around ten of each of the 50 cards in the set with similar results.

Hake’s auctions sold a lower-conditioned set of 50 SGC-graded Retirados, from Richard Merkin’s collection, for $7,843 in June 2011. I can’t fathom how much they’d sell for today!

Here’s PSA’s 1967 Venezuelan Retirado set profile:

The 1967 Venezuelan Retirado baseball set is the second segment of a three-part set that also includes the Venezuelan League (#1-138) and the Venezuelan Topps (#189-338). These three sets run contiguous numbers through all three with the Retirado numbering from 139-188. While the first group features the players of the Venezuelan League and the third group consists of Major League Baseball’s stars, the Retirado portion highlights Hall of Famers dating back to the first induction class as well as a handful of more recent stars and potential future inductees. Each card boasts a player portrait in sepia-tone against a blue background with the player’s name printed at the top and “RETIRADO” boldly printed in red at the bottom of the photo. The backs show the player’s personal statistics and a brief biography printed horizontally. Because the set was printed on crude stock paper/cardboard, coupled with a likelihood that many may have been pasted into a scrapbook, the 1967 Venezuelan Retirado set can be difficult for find in high quality. This set is anchored by the likes of Walter Johnson (#139), Lou Gehrig (#141), Honus Wagner (#143), Joe DiMaggio (#145), Ty Cobb (#146), Babe Ruth (#147), Ted Williams (#148), Christy Mathewson (#151), Stan Musial (#157), Sandy Koufax (#162), Satchel Paige (#177) and Jackie Robinson (#184). 

1933-36 Zeenut Pacific Coast League Joe DiMaggio

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Here’s a card I only recently learned about, a 1933-36 Zeenut Pacific Coast League B&W Joe DiMaggio “Minor League” card.

I put “Minor League” in parenthesis because, while the PCL was a minor league, the play was nothing but.

Anywho, I learned about this card after I saw it in a June 2005 catalog. It was a Mastro Classic Collectors Auction, so it didn’t include a description in the catalog. However, PSA has this synopsis on their site:

Produced between 1933 and 1936 by the San Francisco-based Zeenuts Company, this set consists of 166 cards, each approximately 1-3/4” by 3-1/2”. Card fronts bear clear, borderless images of its subject with a right text box boldly identifying (in white-on-black type) the league, player, and team. Card backs are blank. These cardboard classics were originally issued with coupons at the bottom meant to be cut and redeemed for items. The images remained unchanged during the production run, with the expiration dates on the coupons the only way to distinguish their issue year. This set is anchored by two appearances from Joe DiMaggio during his early career with the San Francisco Seals. Card #108 pictures him throwing and card #109 shows him batting. The set is also highlighted by Jimmie Reese (#10) and Vince DiMaggio (#100). Cards that have retained their coupons through the years are highly coveted artifacts. 

Obviously, the pictured card above is a DiMaggio (misspelled DeMaggio on the card) throwing variation without the coupon. Here’s a graded example that includes the coupon. Goldin sold it for $51,660 in May 2021.

Each variation is relatively low-pop. PSA has only slabbed 12 DiMaggio Batting copies, plus three more with coupons, and 17 examples of him throwing, plus five more with coupons.

Update 27 October 2024: On 26 October 2024, Heritage Auctions sold the lone authenticated, signed copy of the throwing variation for $37,200.

The hobby has so much breadth and depth!

1949 Topps Pixie Bubble Gum X-Ray Round-Up Advertising Poster

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Today, we present a 1949 Pixie Bubble Gum X-Ray Round-Up Advertising Poster from Topps’ early days.

I scanned this image from Mastro’s June 2006 Classic Collector Auction. Since it was an internet-only auction event, none of the items in the catalog included a description. I presume there were descriptions online, but their site has long been deleted.

The Modern Hobby Guide To Topps Chewing Gum: 1938 to 1956 includes a few words about the gum and card set within a discussion about 1949 being the year of many cards:

With the tempered success of Magic Photo giving way to the realization that the lifespan of a top selling set was about six months, Topps came out with a new gum tab called Pixie in the summer of 1949. The cards sold with this gum were called X -Ray Round -Up, as Topps continued to identify the gum and cards separately. Featuring well drawn, vivid color renderings of a series of subjects such as Pirates and Wild West stars on one side, a piece of “X-Ray film” was needed to see the line drawing on the other. Made of red cellophane, the film cancelled out red lines on the back of the card thereby revealing the X-Ray. A piece of X-Ray film was included along with each card. The set was actually marketed featuring the X-Ray pictures as the primary component as Topps slowly learned the business of “inserts”.

Interestingly, some of the illustrations of Indians in the set were closely based on old tobacco cards that had been issued in the 19th Century. The portraits on these cards, which were a quantum leap forward from the simplistic drawings that comprised Tatoo, were probably illustrated by the art agency of Solomon & Gelman.

The guide also offers a multi-page set synopsis; it’s free to download here.

Hake’s Auctions sold one of these poster signs for $275 in 2009, describing it as 20.5 ” x 26″.

Frank Nagy’s Signed 1933 Goudey Mel Ott Card

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I ran across this super cool signed 1933 Goudey Mel Ott card in Mastro’s March 2006 Classic Collector Auction catalog. Why so cool? It was part of Frank Nagy’s collection!

Unfortunately, it got reholdered without the Nagy designation before PWCC sold it for $2,212 in August 2019.

Given how hot on-card autos are getting these days, that price looks like a steal for a Pop 2 card.

Early 1950’s P-F Canvas Shoes Advertising Sign Featuring Musial, Doerr, Campy, Lemon, and Rizzuto

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Here’s an awesome advertisement, scanned from a June 2005 auction catalog for B.F. Goodrich P-F Canvas Shoes featuing a slew of MLB legends.

A few years later, in 2013, Lelands sold a framed copy of the awesome stadium-designed cardboard ad, mentioning that it measures 19” x 25”. They also highlighted the inclusion of Sam Jethroe as an early African American promotion—that copy sold for $640.

If you look around, you’ll find several variations dating later into the ’50s that include legends like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays. However, if you want them in your collections, they’ll cost you many thousands of dollars. Luckily, they all feature floating heads!

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