Football Cards

1965 Topps John Huarte Original Football Card Artwork

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Here’s the original flexichrome artwork for John Huarte’s 1965 Topps #117 Football card.

Ron Oser Enterprises offered it in their December 2000 auction catalog.

They described it as a “Very desirable 3 3/4” x 5 1/4” flexichrome artwork of Huarte’s Short Print rookie card #117 from Topps’ popular 1965 ‘over-sized’ issue. Beautiful condition, neatly affixed to a 7” x 11” black paper backing, accompanied by an example card (EXMT).”

Here’s the artwork next to the final card.

Check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!

The Uncut Sheet Archive

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Welcome to the Uncut Sheet Archive! This is the hub for all the articles I’ve written about uncut sheets, sorted by sport and set. My goal is for it to be the definitive source of uncut sheet information on the web, offering insights into distribution, production quirks, and the factors behind why some vintage cards were so condition-sensitive, even out of the pack!

If you have any rare sheets to share, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Multi-Sport

Other Sports

Non-Sports

Uncut Sheet Hobby Books, Magazine Articles, and 101s

The Unopened Archive

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Welcome to the relaunched Unopened Archive! It used to have pages with photos of packs, wrappers, boxes, and cases from all the big pre- and post-war releases. This 2.0 version is more of a hub for all my blog posts about different unopened material. Over time, I’ll bring back the old content and add way more—like info about fakes, finds, sales, collation, and all the known products out there.

Some of my most unique unopened writing is released via the paid tier of my newsletter, The Unopened Market Report, but if you’re looking for a particular unopened product photo, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Other Sports

Multi-Sport

Non-Sports

Unopened Hobby Books, Magazine Articles, and 101s

1984 Topps Football Cut Card Cases

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Here’s one you don’t see every day, especially in triplicate: a 1984 Topps Football Cut Card Case! One of each sheet (“A”, “B”, and “C”)

Mastro offered these cases in his April 2004 Sports Premier Catalog Auction. While described as an “aftermarket” product, they included a small white sticker with Topps’ distinctive coding information.

Each 35-pound case had 8,650 cards packed in solid, “crisply patterned” rows. Here’s a photo of those rows; I couldn’t get a clean scan since the catalog is so thick, hence the dark color on the left.

With 25,920 cards, there would be enough to create more than 60 complete 396-card sets; that’s a lot of Marino and Elway rookies!

The lot’s description mentioned that the 18” x 12” x 7-1/2” cartons were retaped to ensure structural viability but were unsearched.

I’ll share more about cut card cases in a future newsletter, so subscribe here so you can catch it.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

Pacific Takes On The Goliaths

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Who remembers when super premium packs were just $5.99?

Anyway, the December 1996 issue of Sports Card Trader had an excellent article about Mike Cramer taking on the industry’s goliaths that I wanted to share.

But, before I share the article, it is interesting that the back cover features an advertisement for Pacific Trading Cards…

The article is still a great read, though!

Cramer also recently published a great book called Cramer’s Choice: Memoir of a Baseball Card Collector Turned Manufacturer. I encourage you to pick up a copy for your own Hobby Library; I’ll post a longer review of it in the future as I did for True Mint and Mr. Mint’s Insider’s Guide.

Top 75 All-Time Classic Baseball And Football Cards

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In a ‘sort of related’ follow-up to my post the other day about the Top 25 Most Expensive Baseball Cards In 1993, are the Top 75 All-Time Classic Baseball and Football Cards In 1992.

These came from the August 1992 issue of Allan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Price Guides (Number 9). I call it a ‘sort of related’ follow-up because I flipped through this magazine just after I flipped through the Sports Cards Magazine that had the Top 25 list; they just happened to have been published about a year apart.

I do like that the Top 75 list is organized by year; it’s already rather subjective. Unfortunately for some fans, I don’t think the 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco or 1987 Fleer Will Clark would make the cut on such a list today, nor would the 1989 Pro Set William Perry or 1990 Action Packed Jim Plunkett.

Unopened Case Clearance Specials In 1979

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In “I wish I owned a time machine,” hobby history is this advertisement from the December 1979 issue of The Trader Speaks for “sealed gum cases at the lowest prices ever seen!” And yup, that would be from Mike Cramer’s Pacific Trading Cards.

I shared this image on the Facebook “Vintage Wax and Packs” group, which led to some entertaining comments.

One person said he’d take an infinite amount of 1977-78 Topps Basketball; I agreed since I’ve only ever seen one photo of a wax case.

Another collector asked himself why he hadn’t bought a case for $25, responding that it was about $151 in today’s dollars.

There were a lot of comments about Mike Cramer, who owned the company. By the way, if you have any of his old catalogs for sale, please contact me.

The best comment was, “Funny that the priciest case then is the crappiest one now.” Referring to the 1975 Topps ABC Sports “Giant Stickers” for $40. They must have printed a million of them (and) or sold poorly because they’re incredibly easy to find today; a box was sold on eBay for $8 a few weeks ago.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!