Advertising – Post War Cards

Prince of Cards – The “Best” Unopened Product You Will Ever See

November 20, 2024 by John

Yesterday, I shared an ad from The Baseball Card Kid, with whom most collectors on the leading unopened FB group had fond memories. This ad from Prince of Cards didn’t precisely elicit identical memories.

The ad is a scan from the June 1996 issue of Sports Card Trader. Here are a few comments from collectors on the Facebook ‘Vintage Wax and Packs’ group after I posed this same ad on September 15th, 2024.

One collector noticed that the 1971 rack was bad since the header hole was wrong, and another group expert commented that the 1969 Aaron/Bench rack was probably bogus, too, showing just how far back people were fabricating this stuff.
Someone noticed that the 1975 mini box at $1,750 was actually higher than the price for one as recently as 2012 or so. And someone commented that they were getting them for around $400 in the early ’90s.
It’s not all bad; one collector said he bought a couple of 1986 Fleer basketball sets from Prince (in the late ’90s), and both Jordan’s graded PSA 8.
A collector remembered the huge find of sealed 61-62 Fleer basketball cases in the late 80s/early 90s.
Another collector recalled buying a 1969 cello pack from this dealer that, when opened, had two wax-stained cards in the middle (circa 1992). Another purchased some 1961 Fleer basketball packs around this time that, when opened a few years later, had 1980s Topps baseball cards in the middle.
A ton of collectors said the packs purchased from this dealer in the early ’90s were bad.

The lesson is to be informed and do as much homework as possible, especially when buying pricey items in the unopened niche.

Mark Murphy The Baseball Card Kid – Unopened Advertising In Late 1993

November 19, 2024 by John

Today, the Baseball Card Exchange is the big player in the unopened space, but in the early ’90s, it was Mark Murphy, The Baseball Card “Kid.” Here’s an ad he placed in the December 1993 issue of Sports Cards Magazine.

You can see along the top that he had just bought a gorgeous run of 1970-1979 Topps Baseball wax boxes and was offering packs from each of them as the first products in the ad. Let’s compare prices in December 1993 to PSA 8-graded wax packs today:

1970 Topps: $200 (5th/6th/7th Series) compared to ~$2000+
1971 Topps: $175 (1st/2nd Series) compared to ~$2000++ (BBCE Auctions recently sold a PSA 8 1st Series pack for $6,667 and 2nd Series packs for $3k)
1972 Topps: $65 (3rd Series) compared to ~$500-750
1973 Topps: $110 (2nd Series) compared to ~$1k
1974 Topps: $60 compared to ~$500
1975 Topps: $90 compared to ~$1k
1976 Topps: $35 compared to $350-425
1977 Topps: $30 compared to ~$225
1978 Topps: $20 compared to ~$150
1979 Topps: $15 compared to ~$115

This ad has so many other awesome products, so I shared the advertisement on the Facebook ‘Vintage Wax and Packs’ group in early September 2024 to see what stood out to people who concentrate on this hobby niche:

Some were surprised by how high some prices were at the time; many thought that everything would have been a lot cheaper in 1993.
One collector commented that the 1982 Topps and 1991 Stadium Club boxes cost the same.
Many commented on how many “bad” decisions one could have made in that ad.
A lot of folks had bought vending boxes from him.
There were many comments about the 1986/87 Fleer basketball packs being $225 or $425 for two.
Many recalled fond memories of dealing with Murphy.

Happy collecting!

A Rare 1937 R342 Goudey Baseball Thum-Movies Window Sign

November 16, 2024 by John

I ran across this window sign advertising the circa 1937 R342 Goudy Thum-Movies in Sotheby’s March 1991 auction catalog, which included The Copeland Collection; it’s a cool-looking sign in black and white, but it’s actually red, white, and blue.

Sotheby’s described the window sign as follows:

Goudey Flip Movie Window Sign, circa 1937, red, white and blue, blank on reverse, thin paper and very delicate, depicting a drawing of a flip movie being flipped and also “gum and pictures only 2 cents” which gives it provenance to the R342 set, near mint to mint. 5⅞ in. by 7⅝ in.

The window sign for the R342 Goudey Flip Movies, were meant to be glued to the window of candy stores. This sign still shows the strips of glue along the edges since it was never used.

Their estimate for the item was $1,000-1,500.

Based on the staple holes and a bit of the paper loss, it looks like Heritage resold the same item in February 2017 for $384.

Heritage highlighted that it was the first time they had the opportunity to present this piece to their bidders and that the item was very fragile.

REA sold the following copy, which originated directly from Goudey’s files, in the spring of 2017 for $360.

They wrote that it still had the original strips of clear glue along the vertical sides, which a candy store was supposed to wet to attach the poster to the window. This one also had two clean staple holes, but the paper loss differs from the Heritage example.

For more information, I previously shared a piece about this set’s cousin; the R326 Goudey Flip Movies set, and Sports Collectors Daily has a nice overview of both Goudey Baseball Movies sets.

1938 O-Pee-Chee Horrors Of War Dealer Advertising Sheet

October 23, 2024 by John

I found this 1938 dealer advertising sheet for the Canadian counterpart of the U.S. Gum, Incorporated 1938 Horrors of War set in Mastro’s 2004 auction catalog.

The ad sheet was part of a “Fascinating and Diverse 1930’s-1960’s Non-Sports Collection” and was described as a “Dealer Advertising Sheet; blue-on-white, no illustrations, measures 16-1/2” x 22” w/ mailing folds; text promotes upcoming HOW issue to retailers (EX/MT).”

I don’t want to dwell on the cards much, perhaps in a future post, but the basics are that while advertised as a series of 240 cards, the Canadian set fell short of O-Pee-Chee’s lofty goals. There ended up being only 72 OPC Horror of War cards, and now, because the print run was so small, the cards are really desirable and pricey.

I want to highlight the lower-left corner of the advertising sheet; you can see a call out to the May 9th, 1938 issue of Life Magazine that highlighted the set. I managed to grab a copy of the magazine off eBay for just $13.45 (including shipping)!