1962 Post Cereal Mantle And Maris Store Banners

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Mastro auctioned off this huge 1962 Post Cereal Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris store banner in April 2002.

The overall 34″ x 48″ head-to-head format was meant to be hung over a string mid-aisle to afford a 24″ x 34″ view from either side. Mastro described it as a very fragile and exceedingly scarce collectible.

In the spring of 2012, Robert Edward Auctions sold the following banner variant used in Canadian stores.

It’s visually a little different and slightly smaller, 20” x 30” unfolded. It sold for $1778.

1978 Donruss KISS Series I and II Unopened Wax Cases

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I’d love to see what a pair of 1978 Donruss KISS Series 1 and II Unopened Wax Cases would command together at auction today!

These were offered in 2002 by Mastro, so who knows how legitimate they were. The Series 1 case was described as opened but untouched, with a few boxes showing rippling from exposure to dampness at some point. The Series II case was described as unopened.

Heritage did sell this 1st Series case for $25,200 in February 2022.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

The Great Topps Auction

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Hobby historians learned a lot from Guernsey’s Topps Auction, which occurred on August 19th/20th, 1989, following a two-day public exhibition at the Hunter College Sportsplex in NY, but photos from the event are scarce.

This one’s from the Premier Issue of Topps Magazine, which accompanied an article called The Great Topps Auction. In it, Kenneth M. Liss wrote that Topps baseball photos and art were the big hits of the auction. He highlighted that the original color painting used to create Mickey Mantle’s 1953 Topps card was the #1 attraction and sold for $121k.

Based on the auction’s catalog (pictured below), here are the players pictured in the image:

  • BF 3 is three action frames of Rocky Colavato while on the Detroit Tigers.
  • BF 4 is Lenny Green
  • BF 5 is George Altman and Billy Cowan.
  • BF 6 is Chick Cotter
  • BF 7 is Glen Clark
  • BF 8 is Pete Cimino
  • BF 9 is Ernie Fazio
  • BF 10 is Camiio Carreon
  • BF 11 is Don Loun and Ron Stillwell

Check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!

1956 Topps Uncut Sheet of 110 Cards

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Hobby History From A November 2001 Mastro Auction – A 1956 Topps Baseball Uncut Sheet of 110 Cards.

This 110-card production sheet features cards numbered 1-100 plus ten double prints. Included are Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, and Warren Spahn. Hank Aaron and William Harridge are among the double-printed cards.

I’ve read that the hobby has under 30 1956 Topps production sheets, and many are overprinted errors.

Regarding pricing, REA sold the following example in their Spring 2022 catalog for $57600. Ernie Banks and Jackie Robinson are double-printed on this one!

Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!

The Worst Baseball Card?

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The February 1993 issue of Baseball Cards featured a section called Readers’ Choice, but I’m going to have to disagree with Eric Hoffman on this one!

The 1951 Bowman #195 Paul Richards card is the only cartoon image in the 324-card set.

I’ve read that the most common theory concerning the card was that Richards wasn’t named the manager of the Sox until the Bowman cards were nearly ready to print and because Richards retired as an MLB player in 1946 (he was a player-manager with the Buffalo Bisons of the International League from 1947-49), Bowman didn’t have any recent or suitable photos of Richards to colorize, so they had one of their artists do a last-second drawing.

1938 R323 Goudey Heads-Up Complete Low Number Series Uncut Sheet of 24 Cards

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This incredible 1938 R323 Goudey Heads-Up Complete Low Number Series Uncut Sheet of 24 Cards with DiMaggio, Foxx, and Feller was available in Mastro’s December 2004 catalog.

The sheet contains the set’s entire first series, numbers 241-264, inclusive, and ordered in sequence. Of the twenty-four players, nine are Hall of Famers. The sheet was described as being 14-1/4” x 11-3/8” with some corner and border faults and some visible restoration to suppress surface flaws.

The Hall of Famers include Charlier Gehringer, Ernie Lombardi, Jimmy Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, Al Lopez, Bobby Doerr, Ducky Medwick, and Bob Feller.

Check out The Uncut Sheet Archive for more!