1964 Topps

The Rarest Rookie Cards: The 1964 Topps Rookie All-Star Banquet Set

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In its Summer 1990 issue, Topps Magazine published Kenneth M. Liss’s great article about “The Rarest ‘Rookie Cards.'” PSA has only slabbed 252 cards from this 35-card (ok, 36-card) set!

I want to draw your attention to two things from the article. First, instead of a program in booklet form, in 1964, Topps presented a boxed set of 36 over-sized cards with all the same information. Second, Topps only made 600-700 sets, making them exceedingly rare.

Here’s the original sleeve/box that held the cards.

Leland’s included that box and 35 cards, a handful of which were PSA-8 graded, in their 2018 Invitational auction. The lot sold for $1,886.40.

But what’s really interesting is that it seems Topps pivoted at some point and printed a sample program! Huggins and Scott sold a newly discovered, potentially one-of-a-kind example in August 2023 for $1,740.

They also wrote that only about 300 (or so) invitees attended. The auction believed that after this 1964 program was made, someone at Topps realized they were card manufacturers and that a card set should be made instead of a program. Topps didn’t do much work, as there’s a page number on the lower right-hand corner of each card (see the Page 12 notation on the following example)!

Huggins noted a few differences between this program and the cards:

The thicker card stock versus the thinner paper pages of the program, the cards are blank backed versus the back-to-back printed program pages, and the size.  The program is 3/16″ wider than the card set (so, the bigger program was not part of the snugly fitting boxed card set.)  We believe the programs were likely deemed redundant and were probably trashed, assuming they even made more than one or two to begin with.

Unfortunately, Topps went back to banquet programs in 1965 and 1966. REA offered a complete run of seven 1959 to 1966 Topps Rookie Banquet Programs in their 2018 Spring auction. They sold for $2,040 then but would command A LOT more today.

A Great New Gift Idea! The Topps 1964 Baseball Gift Box

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My favorite thing about the hobby is interacting with other collectors and hobby historians and learning about new items. Well, on the morning of May 1st, 2023, a collector contacted me via e-mail after perusing the site with two photos of an empty box of cards I’d never seen before.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Lid

He thought maybe they were issued around Christmas time in 1964 to sell leftover cards after the season had ended and asked if I knew anything about it. I searched some of my older books and came up empty-handed. He mentioned the box didn’t have any code on it, so I asked if he’d be ok with my sharing it on Facebook to see if anyone else could help.

On Facebook, a collector mentioned he had seen a reference to the box before and shared the following sell sheet.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Sell Sheet

One collector on Facebook commented that the box on the sell sheet looks a lot like a carton of cigarettes! And another was pretty sure Topps only made this product in 64.

The box wasn’t really meant for Christmas; it’s a gift box for any occasion, “what better way to say ‘happy birthday’ or just ‘hello.’ The boxes came 24 per case for $14.40 or 60 cents a box. Each box had 20 5-cent packs (100 total cards), though given the gift theme, I don’t think they were meant to be sold by the pack. 

A ton of collectors reached out to me asking if the owner was interested in selling the empty box, but he’s not. Given how much interest it garnered in such a short period, I presume bidding would be intense.

I’m unsure how you’d price such an item, though. However, one collector shared that there was one on eBay many years ago, and he thought it was for $500, or maybe $338, but acknowledged it would go for much more these days. Another collector thinks he saw one around 2004.

The owner later shared three more photos of the box with me.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 1
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 2
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 3

An interesting thing about the box is that that’s not Whitey Ford’s 1964 Topps baseball card printed on it; it looks like a 1964 design, but with his 1963 Topps photo. 

1964 and 1963 Topps Whitey Ford Cards

Some collectors surmised it could have come out as early as December 1963, given the difference in Ford’s card design. And maybe the low item number of 400 (on the sell sheet) indicates an early release, along with the image of the smiling kid being the same as the one on the 1962 Topps Baseball Bucks dealer sell sheet?

1962 Topps Baseball Bucks Sell Sheet

Funny enough, Topps did something similar with the 1964 Topps Giants set; the picture of Whitey Ford on the box isn’t identical to his card.

1964 Topps Giants Box and Whitey Ford Card

If you have more insight into this unique Topps product, please leave a comment or e-mail me.

1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Featuring Mickey Mantle

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This 1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Ad Card featuring Mickey Mantle was auctioned off in August 2006.

It’s encapsulated as “authentic” by PSA and was used to drum up interest and give a sneak preview to dealers and collectors for the 1964 Topps Baseball series. The triptych (a picture or carving in three panels side by side) measures 7-9/16” x 3-1/2” with Mickey Mantle, Jim Davenport, and Boog Powell on the front. While the auction didn’t include a photo of the back, they described it as having information about the prospective series’ special features and insert products and also had a Mantle card back as a design example.

Heritage resold the same item in December 2020 for $7,200; they wrote, “One of the fuels that drove the Topps machine was the salesman sample. They featured three cards but had Topps sales propaganda or a sticker selling the set on the reverse. For their 1964 effort, they wisely picked baseball’s best in HoFer Mickey Mantle to promote the upcoming 587-card series. Mantle is joined by fellow major leaguers Jim Davenport and Boog Powell but it is Mantle’s card used for the reverse example.”

If you own any salesman samples, I’d love to chat with you about them for my research.