I ran across this 1967 Topps “Who Am I?”-style test proof card of Paul McCartney in Mastro’s American Premier Catalog Auction that featured the “Topps West Coast Archive.”
You can see that GAI graded the card as Mint 9 and added the “1st Graded” notation. Goldin sold another McCartney proof card with a “1st Graded” notation in January 2021 for $540, but curiously, it’s graded NM-MT 8. I suppose there are subtle differences in the quote block (like the Fred Newman cards pictured below).
The set’s checklist ended up at 44, but Topps did a lot of experimenting. In the spring of 2017, REA sold an uncut sheet of the test issue for $1680. In the description, they wrote, “Presented on this sheet are twelve cards (printed twice) which were not included in the final production of the set, and were created by Topps specifically as test proof cards. These twelve cards never saw public distribution, and were produced utilizing materials for internal use only, as a test design concept for a set that was, of course, fully executed.”
Notice the 1967 Topps Baseball cards?
The sheet features Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, two different poses of Lyndon B. Johnson (one as Senator and one as President), Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Bob Bruce, Dean Chance, Al Dark, Jimmie Hall, Lee Elia, and Fred Newman.
REA has also sold a handful of GAI-graded proof cards with the same GAI notations as the McCartney and a pair in Topps Vault cases.
