Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
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.
When this ad was placed in edition 7 of Topps Magazine in the summer of ’91, the price was just $15.95 per t-shirt or $27.50 per sweatshirt, plus $3.25 per order for shipping and handling for Anniversary or Traditional series items.
Apparently, a special edition Mickey Mantle one was available with this 52 Topps card on it and a Babe Ruth, too, featuring his ’73 card. About twenty players were available, including George Brett, Will Clark, Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey Jr., Gregg Jefferies, Wally Joyner, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken Jr., Nolan Ryan, Darryl Strawberry (Mets or Dodgers), Ozzie Smith, Frank Viola, among others. Checks were payable to Insta Graphic Systems based in Cerritos, CA.
I’m unsure what these look like, so if you have one, please let me know.
Red Grange took the field for the last time on January 27, 1935, in an exhibition game at Gilmore Field in Los Angeles, a rematch of the NFL Championship game. Here’s a ticket stub from the game.
Mastro sold this example in July 1998, but I found another one offered by SCP Auctions in January 2008.
This graded example sold for $175 before the recent focus on tickets in the hobby and the run-up in their prices.
The 1949 Bowman America Salutes the FBI set is one that I only recently discovered while browsing an auction catalog from November 1998 and ran across a photo of the wax wrapper.
Here’s a photo of the front and back of the first card in the set that I grabbed from PSA’s Gallery.
Isn’t it interesting how closely the back resembles its baseball cousin?
I ran across this tidbit about the “PSA-8” graded McNall/Gretzky T-206 Honus Wagner in Topps Magazine’s 6th Edition (Spring 1991). Madness indeed!
The article explains that the Piedmont-backed T206 Honus Wagner achieved the highest price ever (at the time) for a single baseball card, $410k (plus $41k auction fee) during Sotheby’s auction of The Copeland Collection of Important Baseball Cards and Sports Memorabilia in March 1991.
The card’s history is quite infamous, but I have nothing unique to add to that part of the story; check out Wikipedia or the net54 message boards for more info. However, I’m not sure many people today have seen the auction description, including a photo of the back of the raw, pre-graded card.
I’ve never been a massive fan of the wood-grained 1962 Topps design like others, but the wax box and pack designs that year were awesome!
The two display boxes and unopened wax pack pictured above were offered for sale back in 2004. The pack is an “Extra/Stamps” variation; one of the 5-cent display boxes has “All The Great Major League Stars” as its front panel slogan, while the other features the “Extra/Stamps” front slogan, with a “Mr. Retailer” and “Dimes” lid-top design.
Interestingly, the “Extra/Stamps” design is featured on the 1962 Topps dealer sell sheet floating around the hobby.
Also, it’s a tough find today, but here’s a 1962 Topps 1-cent Wax Pack Box.
In the fall of 1990, Topps Magazine did a ‘Focus on Football’ listing the 100 most valuable Topps football cards on the market.
Prices aside, how do you like the order? One thing I like is that three checklists made the top 10!
Here’s the magazine cover in case you want to pick one up.
