Vintage Sports Cards – Baseball – Basketball – Football – Hockey
Tommy Henrich spent his entire MLB career with the Yankees, and this circa 1940s Wheaties ad shows him in his Yankee uniform along with a cartoon and cereal box. It was offered in a September 2000 auction.
It was described as being in Ex condition, framed and matted, and 21’’ x 11’’ in size.
If you have more information about this “Breakfast of Champions” piece, please leave a comment.
I ran across this advertisement for “The Largest Show Ever Held in New York” in the December 1981 issue of Trader Speaks.
Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider were probably decent draws to a show offering free admission! And they appeared on both days of the show.
I’m curious about which items made up the display of the hobby’s ten most valuable cards. If you know, drop a comment. By the way, many collectors used to order from Gelman’s catalogs. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of them in the Hobby Library to share yet.
I ran across this 1967 Topps “Who Am I?”-style test proof card of Paul McCartney in Mastro’s American Premier Catalog Auction that featured the “Topps West Coast Archive.”
You can see that GAI graded the card as Mint 9 and added the “1st Graded” notation. Goldin sold another McCartney proof card with a “1st Graded” notation in January 2021 for $540, but curiously, it’s graded NM-MT 8. I suppose there are subtle differences in the quote block (like the Fred Newman cards pictured below).
The set’s checklist ended up at 44, but Topps did a lot of experimenting. In the spring of 2017, REA sold an uncut sheet of the test issue for $1680. In the description, they wrote, “Presented on this sheet are twelve cards (printed twice) which were not included in the final production of the set, and were created by Topps specifically as test proof cards. These twelve cards never saw public distribution, and were produced utilizing materials for internal use only, as a test design concept for a set that was, of course, fully executed.”
Notice the 1967 Topps Baseball cards?
The sheet features Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, two different poses of Lyndon B. Johnson (one as Senator and one as President), Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Bob Bruce, Dean Chance, Al Dark, Jimmie Hall, Lee Elia, and Fred Newman.
REA has also sold a handful of GAI-graded proof cards with the same GAI notations as the McCartney and a pair in Topps Vault cases.
The February 1993 issue of Baseball Cards feature called Readers’ Choice not only had a reader call (incorrectly, IMHO) the 1951 Bowman Paul Richards card the worst baseball card of all time, but it also featured this gem from Dan Tisdale about a pair of 1974 Topps football cards.
Here’s each card in full color. What do you think? Are these the worst football cards? Lineman didn’t get the love from Topps in the ’70s!
Here’s an example of a 1935 R321 Goudey Puzzle Series window sign that was auctioned off in April 2003. The sign promoted the premiums collectors could redeem wrappers for.
The catalog described the sign as 9 1/2” x 11”, coming from the great Goudey find of the early 1970s. The sheet is blank-backed, printed on off-white stock, and described as being in near-mint condition despite the sheet’s original glue strips along the top and bottom edges and a single mailing fold at the center.
REA sold what looks like another example of the sign in April 2014 for $415.
They wrote, “The 1935 Goudey “4-in-1” card wrapper offered kids two types of premium redemption, both of which are clearly described here: The coupon portion of the wrappers could be saved and redeemed (through the mail) for an assortment of premiums, including membership to the Knot Hole League, a glove, a cap, or even a “Dizzy and Daffy baseball suit.” The remaining portion of the wrappers could be saved up for a photo, which could be obtained directly from the local storekeeper.”
Here are four different 1935 Goudey baseball wrappers (White & Small Serrated and no Lines, White & Serrated with Lines, Large Clear Lines & Large Clear No Lines) that Memory Lane Inc. sold in August 2017 for $565 so you can read the coupon details.
I’ve shared this photo of “The Topps 10” 1991 Topps baseball cards before, and I’ll do it again because the photography in this set is top-notch; some say it’s the best of any Topps set ever.
I may not order them the same way the readers of Topps Magazine did since I think the image of Cecil Fielder barrelling toward Carlton Fisk is a true classic, but that’s ok.
In addition to these ten, you could argue for the inclusion of many others, like the Sandberg or Ripken record-breaker cards, any of the White Sox cards with the 1917 throwback uniforms, some of the great landscape shots like Shane Mack’s, or portraits like Mariano Duncan. And lastly, let’s remember this fellow, Chipper Jones!
A lot of people remember the April 2004 Mastro auction for the incredible unopened material they sold from, I believe, OPC’s archives. Perhaps overlooked a bit were all the empty vintage Bowman and Topps football display boxes they sold a few years later in 2008.
It’s tough to put prices on items like these today in 2024, given the run-up in vintage unopened/display items, but here are a few sales:
Check out The Unopened Archive for more!