One of the more interesting lots in Mastro’s December 2002 auction was a collection of eight original artworks used to produce cards for the 1957 Topps Football set. All eight had previously been offered in Guernsey’s famous 1989 Topps Archives auction, although they weren’t originally sold together.
Mastro’s lot included artwork for #143 Jim Cason, #108 Lewis McFadin, #100 Joe Childress, #112 Jim Root, #107 Fred Cone, #146 Paul Larson, #98 Joe Scudero, and #110 Tom Runnels. For a look at how the finished cards turned out, there are plenty of examples from the 1957 Topps Football set available on eBay.
Mastro described the 3⅜” × 4¾” pieces as having deep, rich colors, with working pencil marks, adhesive scars, and a “Topps 1989 Auction” stamp on their reverses.
Digging through the original 1989 Guernsey’s catalog, I was able to trace all eight pieces back to four different auction lots.
Cason and McFadin were part of lot FP12, a larger group of Rams artwork that sold for $600. Childress, Root, and Larson came from lot A56, which realized $400. Fred Cone was included in lot B55, which sold for $1,600, while Scudero and Runnels came from lot C56, a $600 group (prices don’t include the 10% BP).
The Mastro collection brought together pieces from several of those original groups, rather than preserving the Guernsey’s lots intact. Those four Guernsey’s lots realized a combined $3,200 in 1989, although they included additional artwork that wasn’t part of Mastro’s eight-piece collection. Thirteen years later, Mastro brought these eight pieces back together, where they sold for just $807.
It’s pretty neat to be able to trace these pieces from the original Topps Archives auction through a later sale, and now we’ve got another documented group of original artwork to add to the Original Artwork Archive.
Happy collecting!
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