Roberto Clemente

1972 Puerto Rican Winter League Sticker Album And Complete Set

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There isn’t much known about the 1972 Puerto Rican Winter League sticker set, but the albums and sets, which are ‘hobby library historically significant,’ still command a pretty penny when they pop up for sale. REA & eBay offered this one in their July 2000 catalog.

The complete set consists of 231 cards/stickers with a few composite subsets, including card #’s 198-206, which form a photo of Roberto Clemente. Just FYI, some collectors have questioned the set’s 1972 dating and suspect that it may have come out in early 1973; if you own a copy, let me know if there’s any copyright dating inside.

The league included a lot of Major Leaguers looking to brush up on their playing skills during the winter months, often Puerto Rican players and folks at the very beginning or end of their careers. Stars included in this set include Rich Gossage, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, and Frank Robinson (as manager of Santurce), along with Felix Millan, Willie Montanez, Sixto Lezcano, Steve Rogers, Sandy Alomar, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Zisk, Jose Pagan, Elrod Hendricks, Juan Pizzaro, and Ron Cey. But the most significant card in this set is Mike Schimdt’s pre-rookie. REA sold this PSA 8.5 in their Spring 2019 auction for $1,320.

The set also includes a few famous game veterans, like Satchel Paige; they have their own section in the album.

The “Veteranos Famosos Del Baseball” scan above is from a complete album that Leland’s Auctions sold for $1,558.50 in November 2023. They explained that the album has 44 pages, including the covers, and measures 6.4” x 8.75”. All the stickers were “carefully” attached. Here are the front and back covers of Leland’s album.

1971 Milk Duds Giant Assortment of 661 Unassembled Complete Boxes

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Today, in hobby hoarding history, a visually stunning assortment of 661 1971 Milk Duds unassembled complete boxes.

REA offered this lot in July 2000 with a $1,000 reserve. Here’s the complete description:

In 1971 Milk Duds issued this unusual set on the back of five cent boxes of Milk Duds candy. This giant hoard of 661 complete boxes includes only 36 different cards. There are between ten and forty-eight of each of 11 players represented in the group. These are complete unassembled boxes which never made it to the candy store. 98% range from Ex-Mt to Nr/Mt-Mt (averaging Nr/Mt), 2% Vg to Vg-Ex/Ex. This is an incredible find of these candy cards in their most ideal complete box form. Assortment includes the following stars with the number in parenthesis indicating the quantity of that player: Aparicio (1). Brock (28), Clemente (34), Jenkins (44), Killebrew (4), Mays (41), McCovey (9), B. Robinson (19). F. Robinson (24), Rose (2), Williams (1). The Standard Catalog book value for this assortment is in excess of $11,000. Total 661 complete unassembled boxes.

While this hoard doesn’t include a complete set of full boxes, which command $3,000-5,000 these days, it did have 41 Mays and 34 Clemente boxes, which, in high grade, individually command >$1k each.

1969 Topps Reverse Artwork Uncut Sheet With Clemente

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This 11 1/2’’ x 13 1/2’’ piece of original artwork originates from Guernsey’s Topps Auction of 1989 and features 12 drawings, including the one used on Roberto Clemente’s card 50.

The sheet’s 12 different drawings represent the cartoons and pieces of trivia used on the back of the following player’s cards: Davenport, LeMaster, Aguirre, Pappas, Taylor, Clemente, Barton, Versalles, McBean, Alou, Carroll, and Glass.

The auction featuring this item in December 2001 highlighted that the card number had been penned on the artwork and that a Topps Auction stamp was on the otherwise blank reverse.

Here’s the back of Clemente’s 1969 Topps card featuring the final cartoon and trivia.