Sports Cards Magazine

Private Collections Reap Big Sales – A Sports Cards’ Auction Report From 1996

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Sports Cards Magazine & Price Guide had a great feature in the mid-’90s, providing “a wrapup of some of the country’s largest sports auctions.” This one from September 1996 was chockful of incredible items.

Larson highlighted the John F. Kennedy signed ball as the highlight of Mastro’s auction that topped $850,000 in sales. But I wanted to compare two of the cards to today’s prices. The PSA 8 graded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle sold for $24,394; today, that’s probably a $1M card. And the PSA 8 1914 Crack Jack Joe Jackson, well, Heritage sold one nine years ago for $101k.

As for the rest of the article, half of that stuff won’t show up for sale again, but if any of it does, you can bet on it being a lot pricier!

Unopened Packs – To Open Or Not To Open?

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Here’s another great mid-90s article from Sports Cards Magazine about the unopened collecting niche; this one from Doug Koztoski includes info from Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid.

Here are a few key takeaways:

  • “For every pack that is opened from a particular year, all remaining packs are that much rarer.”
  • Doug interviewed Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid, for insights; he was the Steve Hart (The Baseball Card Exchange) of the hobby then.
  • Murphy said that Wax was the pack of choice with unopened collectors; I think that’s still true.
  • At the time, a 1-cent 1933 Goudey Sports Kings pack was ~$600
  • The article highlighted that ’59 football penny packs were pretty common, but a penny pack from ’60 is tough to find.
  • A run of 1950s baseball nickel packs was estimated at $61,500 in the mid-’90s.
  • Fake packs were already very commonplace at the time.

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

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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!

The Hobby’s Biggest Scam

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I jokingly shared a scan of the May 1993 issue of Sports Cards (former Baseball Cards) magazine and tagged Dr. Sports Antagonist, who wrote, “Coincidence that “scam”, “profits” and “investments” are all on the same cover?”

Another collector then asked what the hobby’s biggest scam was. After some folks made guesses, I shared Steve Ryan’s article about refurbished cards and memorabilia having become the hobby’s biggest scam.

As Junk Wax Heroes replied, the entire article proves, “Time is a flat circle, so many times I see stuff in old Becketts that still goes on today.”