Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
Mastro offered these four signed 1952 Topps monsters from the Mark Friedland Autographed Card Collection in their August 2006 catalog.
The complete collection was described to have been amassed in just a year and a half, as Mark acquired several prominent private holdings, like the McAllister Collection. Most of the collection’s 10k+ cards were authenticated by PSA/DNA, with the remainder by SGC and James Spence.
The next lot in the auction, 1103, was for 210 different signed 1952 Topps cards!
“The 111 World Series cards Topps included in its regular sets from 1960-1981 are not only nostalgic treasures but also increasingly valuable collectibles.” Topps Magazine Fall 1990 – Edition 4.
Do you have a favorite among these? Mine is the 1964 Topps #136 World Series Game 1 Koufax Strikes Out 15.
A close second would be the 1971 Topps #332 World Series Celebration! I love those black borders.
If you attended the Kansas City Sports Collectors Convention in August 1981, you had the chance to pick up a Joe DiMaggio autographed collectors print done by John Martin. Here’s an ad for it from Trader Speaks.
You can read that Martin limited the number of 18′ x 24” prints to 325 and signed them, along with DiMaggio. Autographed prints were $75, while unsigned copies were $60 at the convention.
I tracked down this copy, numbered 35/325, on the website Everything But The House, where it sold for just $91 in September 2017 (most prints by Martin sell for a couple hundred dollars these days).
Mastro offered this Babe Ruth signed 1939 Baseball Centennial First Day Cover one in their December 2004 catalog, noting the smudging on the “ruth” part of the signature. The auto had an LOA from James Spence & Steve Grad.
The first-day cover is stamped from Cooperstown on June 12, 1939, bearing a 3-cent “Centennial of Baseball” stamp in the upper right corner. The Ex/Mt cover is addressed to a resident of Chicago.
Heritage sold this signed version for $16,800 in October 2018.
REA sold this signed example for $8,700 in their Summer 2023 auction.
Here’s an extremely scarce wrapper from an extremely scarce Canadian pre-war set: the 1924 Willard’s Chocolates V122 Sports Champions.
Ron Oser Entperises offered the 4” x 4” wrapper with a reserve of $100 in their March 1998 catalog. The lot’s description mentioned a 2” tear along one seam.
The V122 set has 56 cards, including three baseball players: Babe Ruth, Eddie Collins, and Ty Cobb. The baseball cards are super pricey; REA sold a PSA 5.5 Babe Ruth for $25,200 in September 2022.
In October 2009, Heritage Auctions sold this wrapper with four hockey cards from the set for $836.50.
They wrote, “Willards Chocolates was a Toronto based firm that produced a few sports theme sets in the mid-1920’s. In 1924 the company produced a 56-card set showcasing athletes from various sports including, baseball, boxing, track and field and hockey. This presentation offers all four hockey subjects: #’s 43 Watson, 45 Collett, 47 Smith and 52 Munro. All four present nicely but were once housed in an album and have paper/glue residue affecting the top portion of the back of each card, Collett has creases. Also offered is a very rare two-color wrapper adorned with a somewhat crude drawing of a runner while promoting “A Picture in Every Bar” of “Willard’s ‘Sports’ Nut Bar.” The rarity of the wrapper explained by the chance to exchange 100 wrappers for “imported chain” for Girls and a “watch chain” for boys. The wrapper has fold lines as issued, plus area of paper damage along the left and right edges, the result of being opened. Despite condition flaws, the wrapper presents at the VG/EX level.”
This gorgeous 4” x 6” color painting of New York Yankees Hall of Fame legend Bill Dickey was produced for but never used in the final 1952 Bowman baseball set.
Ron Oser Enterprises offered this item with a reserve of $375 in their April 2000 catalog. It was framed and matted with a cut auto.
Check out this advertisement from Kit Young from the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards magazine.
At the time, a complete case of 1989 Upper Deck High Number Factory Sets was $1,495, and a 1952 Topps Willie Mays card in Vg-Ex condition was $575.
For context, REA sold this PSA 4 graded 1952 Topps #261 Willie Mays card for $8700 in December 2023.
And those 1989 Upper Deck High Number Factory Set cases? Well, Steel City Collectibles sold one on eBay for $659 in January 2024.
