The Great Topps Auction

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

1957 Topps Paul Hornung Rookie Card Original Artwork

Here’s the original artwork used as the foundation for the 1957 Topps Football Paul Hornung rookie #151.

The flexichrome, a full-color painting on a black-and-white photograph, is 3-3/8” x 4-3/4”, larger than the finished card. The back of the art piece has working pencil marks and adhesive residue.

The item came from the 1989 Guernsey’s Auction, where Topps sold a large portion of their archives.