John

1952 Bowman Chuck Hunsinger Original Football Card Artwork

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You don’t see original artwork used for the 1952 Bowman football large and small issues up for sale very often, and when you do, they’re pricey! Even in 2000, when Ron Oser offered this example featuring Chuck Hunsinger, it had a minimum bid of $375 and was the first they had ever offered.

The brightly colored piece was described as 4” x 6 1/8” with minor corner wear; otherwise, it was in excellent condition. Oser included the example card in the lot.

Over the years, REA has sold most of the publicly offered examples (since they were first offered during Guernsey’s Topps Auction in 1989 with estimates of $300-400 per lot – more on these another time). Three of the priciest have been the card artwork for:

#28 Kyle Rote – $2962 in the spring of 2013

#29 Hugh McElhenny – $2666 in the spring of 2013

#61 Leslie Richter – $2340 in the spring of 2024

1964 Yoo-Hoo Yankees Easel Back Counter Sign With Yogi Berra And Mickey Mantle

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Mastro Fine Sports Auctions offered this Ex-Mt Yoo-Hoo easel back counter sign for sale in their November 2000 catalog.

They described the 11” x 14” piece as being from 1964, featuring eight New York Yankees. Moose Skowron split 1964 between the Senators (the hat he is pictured in) and the White Sox after spending 1963 with the Dodgers but was with the Yankees from 1954-1962.

From an advertising perspective, Yoo-Hoo had a long-standing relationship with Yogi Berra, their spokesman, for around two decades, starting in the late 1950s when Berra became friends with the company’s owner. Berra helped recruit investors and brought in his teammates to help promote the drink.

A few copies exist across the hobby, and when they pop up for sale, they have been selling for ~$1k, but higher prices are possible. However, replicas are available on eBay for under $20.

1971 Topps Baseball Wax Box Of 24 GAI-Graded Packs

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I love the Carpet o’ Wax Pack concept; here are twenty-four graded 1971 Topps baseball packs, each with a coin insert, that Mastro auctioned off as a single lot back in December 2005.

The twenty-four 10-cent packs came with this ~Ex condition wax box. The pack’s grades were as follows: Two were NM-MT 8, 17 were NM+ 7.5, four were NM 7s, and one was an EX-MT+ 6.5.

Packs are pricey these days; BBCE Auctions sold this PSA-8 graded 1971 Topps Baseball 1st Series Wax Pack for $6666.66 in April 2024.

In the same auction, BBCE sold this 2nd Series pack for $3033.81.

1952 Parkhurst Hockey Set And Album

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As the hobby library guy, I love seeing vintage sets bundled together for sale with the albums manufacturers produced for them. The 1952 Parkhurst hockey album is a tremendous post-war example; Mastro offered this one with the complete set of 105 cards in May 2000.

Albums were available to collectors as a 25-cent mail-in offer on the back of the cards. Here’s an example from Tim Horton’s card #58 (photo from Robert Edward Auctions).

The album measures 9” x 11′ and includes 13 pages, each with slots for eight cards via corner mounts. While 13 times 8 is only 104, short of 105, there is a paste-in space for “My Favorite Hockey Star.” 

These days, empty albums can be found for a little over $100, while complete sets are $2.5k++.

1952 Bowman Uncut Sheet Including Mickey Mantle

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Here’s a cool one from my hobby library auction catalog archives: a 1952 Bowman Uncut Production Sheet with Mickey Mantle (cards 73 through 108).

Mastro offered this one in their “Fine Sports Auctions” November 2000 catalog. It was described as a complete 36-card final production sheet. The sheet’s corners all showed wear consistent with a Very Good card, and a fairly heavy crease runs across the second row from the bottom, along with a few shorter creases and some wrinkling.

I don’t know what it sold for, but the minimum bid was $5k.

REA re-sold the sheet (you can tell from the crease on the Billy Hitchcock card – 2nd from the right on the bottom row) in their 2020 Spring catalog for $45,600.

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.