The Guiding Lights

This third and final part of my study of pricing structures in the hobby, which will be much more compact than what has come before, will show a dramatic shift from traditional hobby publications to the slicker formats of newsstand magazines and retail books. By 1981 the hobby had effectively "grown up" and was a big enough phenomenon to routinely enter mainstream publishing circles and monthly and annual price guides became the norm. It also became easier to track pricing in certain conditions, although there was enough variance between all publications to make it necessary to extrapolate pricing in some grades.

I used the following books and magazines plus Bill Henderson's Pricing Grid in The Trader Speaks for a portion of 1981 and 1982 as it was practically set up like the TTS Grid, to track prices from January 1981 to May 1990 (where my run of hobby publications ends for the most part):

1981: Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, The Trader Speaks, Baseball Cards Magazine (two issues per year during baseball season)

1982: Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, The Trader Speaks, Baseball Cards Magazine (two issues per year during baseball season)

1983: Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, Current Card Prices, Baseball Cards Magazine (two issues per year during baseball season)

1984: Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, Current Card Prices, Baseball Cards Magazine (four issues per year, issued bi-monthly April through October) 

1985: Baseball Cards Magazine (four issues per year, issued bi-monthly April through October) 

1986: Baseball Cards Magazine (four issues per year, issued bi-monthly April through October) 

1987: Sports Collectors Digest Baseball Price Guide, Baseball Cards Magazine (8 issues as it went from baseball season to bi-monthly to monthly this year)

1988: Baseball Cards Magazine (12 issues)

1989: Sports Collectors Digest Baseball Price Guide, Baseball Cards Magazine (12 issues)

1990: Sports Collectors Digest Baseball Price Guide, Baseball Cards Magazine (5 issues January through May)

Full disclosure-I worked for Current Card Prices (CCP) for two-and-a-half years (covering the first 25 issues) where I assisted with the initial development of pricing and then a large portion of the monthly updates thereafter.

I gave up on TTS pricing in this study after 1982 as Dan Dischley was clearly losing momentum and the price grid practically disappeared thereafter. He sold out in September 1983 and the new owners (his neighbors) tried to turn it into a price guide publication like CCP but it was not to be and I was not able to verify their hobby bona fides. It ceased publication after the March 1984 issue when Krause Publications (Sports Collectors Digest parent company) bought the mailing list. You can also see my Sport Americana Guides are bereft after 1984, when I stopped purchasing them.  After 1990 I will only show sporadic pricing as my run of publications is not as robust as it could be. I'll conclude with PSA's current pricing, which will amaze and or/anger many of you, depending upon when you sold off some of your cards!

This mostly 80's overview will be presented in the form of yearly averages with commentary regarding each along the way.  It was an unexpected challenge to wrangle the pricing for Ex-Mt, NM and Mint conditions into a cohesive whole. For pricing through 1986 I used Ex-Mt as the baseline, then NM thereafter.  I extrapolated prices for the other grades according.  From 1981-86 the NM price was extrapolated to 120% of Ex-Mt and Mint to 140%.  After that, the spread between Ex-Mt and NM grew and I calculated Ex-Mt at two-thirds of the NM price and Mint at 120% of NM.  It's not perfect but it's close enough to show what I want to show. Rounding to the nearest penny or dollar sometimes occurs, especially for the latter years of the decade, as it seemed silly to show trailing cents for $100+ cards.

1981

As noted in my last post, the 1981 edition of the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide had a key article that revealed three 1952 Topps high numbers had been double printed, including one of my research subjects. This had a deleterious effect on the pricing of this card in what also turned out to be a little bit of a down time for 50's and 60's cards that lasted into 1982. That revelation, coupled with a huge amount of interest in current issues thanks to Donruss and Fleer issuing sets along with Topps, plus a little thing called Fernando-mania, together with the player's strike mid-season and poor economic conditions generally, resulted in that utmost rarity, a Mantle card pricing depression.

The averages for the year are as follows (order is Ex-Mt/NM/Mint) and I've put the 1980 Sport Americana pricing in parentheses.  I decided to add the 1961 high numbers, which at one point later in the decade were considered in some collecting circles to be the hardest of all the 60's high numbers and in fact considered replacing the 57 mids with them (and didn't) but they debut here, blog-wise. I didn't track the full year, nor did I do so for 1982 either. Tough noogies.

1952 Highs: $42.50/$51.00/$59.50 ($55.00). Slight uptick as collectors continued to chase these for sets.

1952 Mantle: $1,095/$1,315/$1,534 ($2,500). Mantle prices plummeted and were down to $750 or so for an Ex-Mt example by December.

1957 Mids: $2.17/$2.60/$3.04 ($1.80). As with the 1952 highs, sets were being filled in by collectors.

1961 Highs: $6.00/$7.20/$8.40 ($4.00). Gotta start somewhere.

1966 Highs: $1.94/$2.33/$2.72 ($1.80). Gotta get those high numbers for your set!

1966 Perry: $43.39/52.07/$60.75 ($10.00). Only Sport-Americana picked up on this trend, first noticed at conventions around the summer of 1980 and even commented upon in The Trader Speaks yet bizarrely not addressed in their pricing grid.

1967 Highs: $1.42/$1.70/$2.00 ($1.50). Their pricing would lag the 66's for the entire decade.

1967 B. Robinson: $63.58/$76.30/$89.01 ($120.00). Brooks was plummeting along with the Mick.

1972 Highs: 37 cents/44 cents/52 cents (22 cents). You could still buy large quantities of mint high numbers in 1981 but these and the 1970 and 1971 highs were poised for increases.

1982

I want to show you the Bill Henderson Pricing Grid, which was ubiquitous for many years in the hobby guides and magazines. He was the self proclaimed "King of Commons" and boy was that an appropriate moniker, especially if you saw the mountain of cards he used to bring to the National and other major shows:

Some of those pricing ranges on 60's high numbers were due to grouped together All Star or Rookie cards bringing more then regular commons. His 1967 high number pricing spread may indicate Bill knew about the short prints as there's just plain old commons, tough cards, Rookie Stars and Team cards randomly sprinkled throughout.

On to our pricing averages for the year:

1952 Highs: $38.13/$45.76/53.38.  Down a smidge, possibly just due to the relatively high price per card.

1952 Mantle: $677/$812/$947.  The low point for the Mick came in the November TTS, where he was listed at $695 in Ex-Mt. Still a lot of money at the time but just an absolute bargain in retrospect.

1957 Mids: $2.61/$3.13/$3.65. Holding their own.

1961 Highs: $5.93/$7.12/$8.30. See 1957.

1966 Highs:  $2.00/$2.40/$2.80. See 1961.

1966 Perry: $31/$36/$43. Overheated too early, cooling down period ensued.

1967 Highs: $1.39/$1.67/1.95. Steady as she goes, just down a couple of cents.

1967 B. Robinson: $59/$71/$83. The idea this was a true short print was wearing thin.

1972 Highs: 47 cents/56 cents/68 cents. Up a little but ample supply in Mint was still out there.

1983

The first full year of tracking the 1961 highs here, after a high-atus (sorry). 

1952 Highs: $36.74/44.09/51.44. Still down a little.

1952 Mantle: $941/$1,130/$1,318.  The comeback at last.

1957 Mids: $2.62/$3.14/$3.67. Rock steady in the extreme.

1961 Highs: $4.62/$5.54.$6.47. A down year, not sure why.

1966 Highs: $1.82/$2.18/$2.55. Just down a hair.

1966 Perry: $41/$49/$57. No hair, but growing.

1967 Highs: $1.61/$1/93/$2.25. First time these went up and the 66's went down it seems.

1967 B. Robinson: $78/$938/$109. Looking up for Brooksie in '83 with his HOF induction no doubt helping.

1972 Highs: 48 cents/58 cents/67 cents. Another steady series.

1984
The big change this year was the introduction of Short Print and Double Print Pricing for the 1967 high numbers in Current Card Prices. This was partially the result of my research at CCP, which was the only publication to track these at all in the 1980's from what I can tell and only identified the Double Prints in the last six months of the year. The publisher and I disagreed on some of the Single and Double Prints and he listed far less of the former and far more of the latter than I had uncovered based upon his years of experience as a dealer. Fair enough as the current research indicates there may be three or possibly four levels of scarcity, some of which may be related to a production problem and not the array of the press sheets.

The standard pricing in my figures down below is essentially a blended figure of "DP" and "regular" prints.  I've not parsed it further as the pricing in this study from 1985 onward does not include anything further from CCP; I have the January 1985 issue, which was the last one I worked on but have not included it in any figures here.

If you include the #531 checklist, there are 77 cards in the 1967 high numbers. CCP identified 23 DP's and 5 of the cards broken out in the individual listings were shown as as Short Prints: #553 Yankees Rookies, #558 Orioles Rookies (Belanger), #563 Adcock, #581 Mets Rookies (Seaver) and #586 Jimenez; the dot meant a card had been added to the listings. The rest of the highs were just treated as "regular" prints" although there are six other cards I believe to be true short prints and 11 others that could be as well. I regret that I do not have all of my original notes anymore.

Meanwhile, things were decidedly looking up for Mickey and friends in the '52 highs:

1952 Highs: $43.02/$51.62/60.23. They would never be this cheap again.

1952 Mantle: $1,360/$1,632/$1,904. It's off to the races from this point. Still racing...

1957 Mids: $2.62/$3.14/$3.67. Stagnation nation.

1961 Highs: 4.67/$5.60/$6.54. Very little movement.

1966 Highs: $2.03/$2.44/$2.84. The separation between these highs and those from the following year was starting to grow.

1966 Perry: $45/$54/$63. Steadily going up in the first year of his retirement.

1967 Highs: $1.61/$1.93/$2.25. Nowheresville, as all the action was in SP/DP activity.
1967 Short Print Highs: $4.07/$4.88/$5.70. The short prints priced here are really just three commons.

1967 B. Robinson: $76/$91/$106. A little down. It seems to me that a good supply of 1967 high numbers were still out there, whereas the 66's were drying up.

1972 Highs: 58 cents/70 cents/81 cents. It doesn't seem like much but this is a 20% increase from 1983.

1985
A big focus on 80's rookie cards (yawn) was developing in the hobby and articles about speculating on same were starting to permeate Baseball Cards magazine.  That trend would continue for the rest  of the decade.

My "grid" now excludes the 1967 Short Print highs.

1952 Highs: $43/$51.00/$60. Hopefully you stocked up on these in 1984.

1952 Mantle: $1,200/$1,440/$1,680. Same here.  Wonder if FOMO was starting to take hold?

1957 Mids: $2.50/$3.00/$3.50. Surprisingly down just a hair.

1961 Highs: $4.75/$5.70/$6.65. Unsurprisingly up by a hair.

1966 Highs: $2.13/$2.56/$2.98. These just kept up their slow grind upwards.

1966 Perry: $48/$57/$67. Following the herd.

1967 Highs: $1.60/$1.92/$2.24. This is getting ridiculous.

1967 B. Robinson: $74/$88/$103.The decline continues.  

1972 Highs: 68 cents/82 cents/95 cents.Almost a 20% jump again.  It's amazing but the 1970-72 high numbers, which were all trading in this kind of range, were creeping up on the 67's.

1986

This was the last year default Ex-Mt pricing was a thing.  It was a useful description back in the days of letter-writing and hobby publications that were all text but more and more it came to signify cards that were "pack fresh" but with potential to be wildly off-center. And with millions of new cards issued every year, everybody wanted "NM or better" anyway.

1952 Highs: $49/$58/$68. They just kept going up, up, up.

1952 Mantle: $1,800/$2,160/$2,520. 50% increase from 1985. Mickey was a fixture at card shows at this point, certainly helping his popularity.  I saw him at a show once around 1983-ish (I was waiting on line to get a Duke Snider autograph) and he was a good signer, great with kids, probably due in part to his ever present glass of "water."

1957 Mids: $2.56/$3.07/$3.58. Down just a tad.

1961 Highs: $4.75/$5.70/$6.65 UNCH, as the old daily stock market tables used to show.

1966 Highs: $2.38/$2.86/$3.33. Grinding, grinding.

1966 Perry: $49/$59/$69. Just about unchanged. 

1967 Highs: $1.60/$1.92/$2.24. Essentially three years in a row of stagnant pricing.

1967 B. Robinson: $78/$94/$109. The ebb and flow of Brooks continues.

1972 Highs: 70 cents/84 cents/98 cents. These had cooled off a bit.  

1987 (Standard Pricing is now NM, other grades are calculated from that baseline with a 20% increase for Mint and deduction of one-third for Ex-Mt. Grading spreads were changing as condition became paramount to collectors. "Mint freaks" were once derided by some Long Island dealers I knew but the joke turned out to be on them).

There's finally some decent movement on a lot of my subjects.  1987 was the year when things exploded in terms of new card production and it seemed interest in the hobby was growing almost exponentially.

1952 Highs: $58/$87/$104. First good increase in a couple of years.

1952 Mantle: $2,121/$3,180/$3,816. If Mickey was a hobby (race)horse, he'd be Secretariat.

1957 Mids: $3.44/$5.15/$6.18. Perhaps the most amazing story here, a noticeable increase after half a decade.

1961 Highs: $5.77/$8.65/$10.38. These too were showing signs of life.

1966 Highs: $2.93/$4.40/$5.28. Up almost 20%, just like the other highs above.

1966 Perry: $52/$78/$94. Priming the pump as the HOF got closer.
1967 Highs: $1.68/$2.52/$3.02. Still lagging the 66's.

1967 B. Robinson: $79/$104/$125. As the highs went, so did Robinson.

1972 Highs: 68 cents/$1.02/$1.22. A surprising, albeit slight, retreat.

1988
If 1987 was the year of great hobby interest, 1988 was the year prices really stared zooming. I became a part time dealer starting in the Fall of 1988 and there were literally people walking around shows with large paper bags full of cash.  Somehow, in the year of crisis following one of the biggest stock market crashes in US history (Black Monday anyone?) people were shelling out huge bucks for old cardboard.  This may seem like a familiar theme to us all in this pandemic year.

1952 Highs: $91/$136/$163. Up close to 35%.

1952 Mantle: $3,928/$5,889/$7,067. Mickey was almost double from the prior year's average. With a bad stock market, invest in good cards I guess.

1957 Mids: $6.26/$9.38/$11.26. Huge jump for these.

1961 Highs: $9.59/$14.38/$17.26. And these.

1966 Highs: $5.26/$7.88/$9.46 Same.

1966 Perry: $102/$153/$184. Samer.

1967 Highs: $2.59/$3.88/$4.66. Not quite as much as the other subjects above but a healthy bump.

1967 B. Robinson: $87/$130/$156. A 20% boost.

1972 Highs: 92 cents/$1.38/$1.66. Close to a 40% rise from the year prior.

1989
Things cooled a little as a recession was teeing up.  The trend was still up though. Of note, 1966 Short Prints were finally being broken out and priced.

1952 Highs: $99/$149/$178. Up 10% or so after a hot 1988.

1952 Mantle: $4,336/$6,500/$7,800. 10% as well on the upside.

1957 Mids: $9.81/$14.71/$17.65. Almost a two-thirds rise on a percentage basis.  I can't recall if this was a particularly hot set at the time but it sure seems like it was.

1961 Highs: $12.10/$18.14/$21,77. Lagging the 57's, practically a first.

1966 Highs: $12/$18/$21.60. These more than doubled-wowsers!
1966 Short Print Highs: $13/$19.50/$23.40. Baseball Cards Magazine picked up on these at the beginning of the year, although I'm not sure of their source. The SP/DP spread would grow but eventually wane a bit.

1966 Perry: $160/$240/$288. His HOF vote inched ever closer and prices escalated accordingly. 

1967 Highs: $3.20/$4.80/$5.76. Best bump yet.

1967 B. Robinson: $110/$165/$198. Following along with the highs still.

1972 Highs: $1.29/$1.93/$2.32. The best year yet for this psychedelic favorite of mine.

1990
Given the recession was essentially in full swing by Summer, my meager collection of Baseball Cards magazine that ends in May is not a huge help for annual pricing studies. Still, here's a snapshot before things went awry.  I can tell you that shows in the latter half of 1990 were not good from my perspective as a part-timer. The trend would continue into 1991 after which my partner and I gave up; a lot of smaller shows were dying at this point too.

1952 Highs: $100/$150/$180. This is not really movement at all.

1952 Mantle: $5,136/$7,700/$9,240. The road to five figures was paved and just waiting for traffic, recession be damned.

1957 Mids: $10/$15/$18. Stagnation nation regeneration.

1961 Highs: $13.44/$20/$24. These were still going up a little.

1966 Highs: $10/$15/$18. The SP/DP split was affecting the DP pricing it seems.
1966 Short Print Highs: $13.34/$20/$24. It's worth noting there is still no true consensus on which SP''s are really SP's. A debate over which high numbers and their respective SP's are harder to find in 1966 vs. 1967 rages on.  These two years have oddly printed and/or produced and/or collated and/or distributed high numbers, for reasons that are still unclear.

1966 Perry: $167/$250/$300. Little bit o'bumpage.

1967 Highs: $3.34/$5/$6. Same as Perry.

1967 B. Robinson: $117/$175/$210. Same as the highs.

1972 Highs: $1.50/$2.25/$2.70. Nice increase on these toughies.

And now I punt...half the fun of this exercise was re-reading all the old hobby publications.  Price guides are just not the same and from about 1987 they really supplanted the tradition hobby 'zines in terms of setting the pricing pace.

Fast forward to 2011 and things are, well, interesting when looking at The Standard Catalog, which basically supplanted the old SCD Guide and is sorely missed by me and the hobby in general.  I'm only going to use NM pricing as the spread to Mint turned into a chasm and Ex-Mt was but a distant memory.

1952 Highs: $400 - you need a Brinks truck full of cash to collect the high numbers in any kind of decent shape.

1952 Mantle: $35,000 - Make it two Brinks trucks for the Mick.
1957 Mids: $25 - They finally grew up!

1961 Highs: $20 - They finally calmed down.

1966 Highs: 12.50 - Equlibrium.
1966 Short Print Highs: $16 - Shrinking spread.

1966 Perry:  $170 - Great pitcher but not all that popular in the hobby other than with certain team and HOF collectors.

1967 Highs:  $12 - Parity with 1966 achieved.

1967 B. Robinson: $250  Compare to the Seaver rookie at $500.

1972 Highs: $12 -  As I mentioned w-a-a-a-y back in the first of the posts in this series, these were thought to be the hardest (i.e. printed in lesser numbers than 1970 or '71) of the 70's high numbers.

I'm going to jump ahead here again and show PSA pricing as of August 2020, in NM 7. Once grading really came to the fore in the mid 90's, the old "raw" guide prices became somewhat outdated in a way.

1952 Highs: $300 - eBay has made it clear these are not as difficult as believed by prior generations of collectors. In demand certainly and definitely not common but not the ne plus ultra of major tough postwar cards either. as collectors of the 50's and 60's once thought.

1952 Mantle: $115,000 - This speaks for itself. Holy crap.
1957 Mids: $32 - This feels about right if you ask me.

1961 Highs: $28 - This too, as their perceived scarcity has also been both unmasked and affirmed in a way by eBay.

1966 Highs: $15 - These look like they hit an early peak and got stuck on the mountain.
1966 Short Print Highs: $25 - I still don't know how the SP's are determined.

1966 Perry: $135 - Party's definitely over for Gaylord.

1967 Highs: $20 per the series tranche at the top of the listing, $16 per the individual player listings and no mention of SP's or DP's.  Curious.

1967 B. Robinson: $250 - Stability has been achieved. Seaver is a $900 card in this grade with a lot more potential to grown that Brooks in my opinion

1972 Highs: $5.  Didn't see that coming.  1970 at $6 and 1971 at $12 have surpassed them but those both have full bleed color to the edges.

 I thought it would be interesting to show the PSA 7 results for all high or scarce numbers from 1952-1973 to finish this study off. I'll repeat the above figures from August 2020 for the sake of clarity, without getting too deep into Short Prints, Double Prints or Extra Prints:

1952: $300
1953: $110
1954: $45 for the "series" running from #51-#75. These are not really high or scarce series cards in actual fact but the print arrays beyond the first series of 50 cards are quite bizarre this year, with huge numbering gaps.
1955: $50 but there's not really much a spread on these vs. the lows.  1954 and 1955 were short sets and Topps didn't have to issue more than four series in either year.
1956: $30 for high numbers that are relatively abundant in comparison to prior series. Again, 4 series and not 5 or more helps smooth things out.
1957: $32 for fourth series of course.
1958: $14 for everything beyond the first series, which shows at $18.  With Stan Musial signed and a high number all star card of the Donora Greyhound was triple printed (same with the Mick), at the expense of four other subjects on at least one slit (132 card half sheet) or press run. Topps pumped the last series hard in the first year of truly national major league baseball.  First series issues were probably due to all the new pictures and write-ups that had to be made. The four cards that got short shrift in the all star shenanigans are listed at $25 each.
1959: $16 for the first high numbers of note (in terms of print run) since 1953. Noticeable color change on the back as well.
1960: $12 in a year where the highs are not too difficult.
1961: $28
1962: $16. PSA has a bunch of SP's listed higher ($20) but I don't know how they figured them out.
1963: $10, or $2 less than the semi-highs. There is semi-active research going on over at Net54 on the 1963 press runs and sheet arrays.
1964: $12 for another fairly easy year.
1965: $10 for an abundant series of highs priced just $2 more then the semi-highs.
1966: $15 for another year being dissected over at Net54.
1967: $20 (or $16) for a popular set and another being looked at over at Net54.
1968: $6 for the last two series vs. $5 for all below.
1969: $9 vs. $7 for all other series.  These are not hard at all but the year is very popular.
1970: $6
1971: $12
1972: $5
1973: $3 vs. $2 otherwise in a year where a good percentage of cards got distributed all at once from the get-go.

Other than 1952, 1953 and possibly 1954, it's not too hard to find highs or the tougher series in decent shape, although if you like truly good centering you may feel differently. Other years where production seems to have accelerated are 1959, 1965 and 1969. 1961 is still a bit tough, 1962 and 1963 have full bleed borders on some or all of the edges that makes nicer looking cards harder to find.  As always, your experience may vary!

We're Only In It For the Money

Back at it kids-today we pick up the scarce series pricing saga circa 1977 in part two of our ongoing Saturday study. This will be a very TTS-centric post as I only have that publication's run and a clutch of Mike Bondarenko's Baseball Card News (BCN) issues at my disposal for the late 70's. In reality, there wasn't much else out there at the time other than Sports Collectors Digest and maybe Sport Fan (which was about to merge with BCN anyway) as other long term hobby periodicals withered away one by one.

February 1977, which brought us an issue of The Trader Speaks that I think was a special giveaway given how many copies of it I've seen and owned over the years, has a Jack Wallin ad that priced 1952 Topps cards like so:

#1-80        75 cents
#81-250    50 cents
#251-310  $1.00

No highs though, rats! Things would pick up quickly though on the 52 highs (and a lot of others) and it was all due to a name we still know today, Dr. James Beckett.

Beckett had a survey form appear in the centerfold of the January TTS (he had solicited this information in other 'zines as well and at various collector conventions) and the results, which also included tabulation from collector mailings, appeared in the April and May issues.  It's the April results that are of interest here (VG-EX pricing was the standard condition across the entire survey):

Given the lack of prior scarce series pricing information for most Topps sets in TTS ads and elsewhere, earlier Beckett results from the collector mailings and convention must have informed some of the survey questions. Note too the continuance of the error involving the fourth 1952 series ending at #252!

The above results have the first indications I can trace of widespread diverging series pricing for Topps Baseball. It's certainly the first mention of the 1966 and '67 highs I can find. This also appears to be the very beginning of specific series pricing tranches, which would wax, then wane (except for the truly tough ones) somewhat over the ensuing forty-plus years. While we now know the 1968 and 1969 sets had differing degrees of high number difficulty (the former being slightly tough, the latter not really with the customary pullback not affecting the last series too much) and the 1970-72 highs are a fair bit harder than say the 68's, the demand had not yet outstripped the available supply.  Indeed there are multiple ads in most 1977 TTS issues offering vending boxes and cases from those years and I suspect Topps was clearing out warehouse space in Duryea at the time.

April and May TTS issues also brought forth, in apparent arrangement with CCC, Don Lepore ads selling 500 count 1967 vending boxes for $20, with 100 highs, presumably still from vending, going for $20, a 5 X premium that roughly mirrored the Beckett results. I will also say the 1957 scarce 4th series and 1967 high number pricing seems to have been a bit ahead of Beckett's findings from the ads I've seen in these two "results" issues.  And I mean by maybe another 25-30% for the 57's and 50-60% for the 67's.  20 and 10 year anniversaries may have played into that, not sure, but both set's high numbers seemed to be having a hobby moment at the time.

Baseball Card News, in their July 4, 1977 issue, had an ad from Chicago's Sports Collectors Store with 1972 highs priced at 15 cents apiece, vs. a lowly 6 cents for anything below the last series. This issue also featured a Don Lepore ad with 12,000 card cases of 1969, 1970 and 1971, series not indicated but clearly not highs at those prices. The 1967 highs he had offered only six weeks or so prior were nowhere to be found.

In August of 1977, Card Collectors Company ran an ad in The Trader Speaks offering the 1972 high numbers in bulk. 1,000 assorted for $120 or you could nail 10,000 assorted for only $900, so clearly there were large amounts of vending still out there. And then this dropped the next month, which after noting on the first page (not shown here but which consisted, I am not kidding, mostly of 1951 Red Back cards) that they had received a "great response" to the August ad, presented the following for sale:

OK, so clearly some massive amount of old Topps inventory popped up at the CCC, supporting my warehouse dumping theory.  No 1963, 1964 or 1966 vending cases in the run from 1962 but those high numbers at 5,000 cards per batch-ye gods!!

The math works out like so per card (heck, I'll do all the high series calculating for ya) on the 5,000 counts, with low series pricing in parenthesis where possible and factoring in the offered 10% reduction:

1962: 17.55 cents (4.5 cents)
1965: 14.4 cents (just over 3.5 cents)
1967: 14.4 cents
1968: 9 cents (about 2.14 cents)
1969: 9 cents (just under 2 cents)
1970: 4.68 cents
1971: 4.68 cents (just over 1.5 cents)
1972: 6.3 cents (1.35 cents)

And how about some assorted 1970's Basketball or even older Football at a penny a throw-yikes!  CCC would also repeat the case offerings in the next month's issue.This pricing structure really shows high numbers from the 60's and 70's were just starting to gain differential pricing mere months after the first Beckett results were made public.  Coinkidink?

A truncated version of the CCC TTS ad with the same case and large lot pricing ran in the August 1, 1977 BCN and not to be outdone (kidding) John Metzger, Jr. had an ad in the same issue offering the 1972 complete high number series in Ex-Mt  for $21, or a hair under 16 cents a card. There was clearly ample unopened product floating around.

A buy ad from Tony Spaneo in the October TTS offered $6 each for 1952 highs (commons) and $75 for the Mantle, all in Ex-Mt.  Dickey and Mathews were worth $25 and Jackie Robinson and Campanella $20, so the Mantle pricing had clearly eclipsed other '52 HOF highs as the World Series approached. Bad timing for Mr. Spaneo though as Lew Lipset was offering $10 for common 1952 highs and $35 for the Campy in the same issue.

Fast forward to The Trader Speaks in December of '77 and Lew Lipset himself reported some auction results from a couple of competitors.  1952 highs in roughly VG-EX were described as bringing "$14-$15 each. It's worth noting that what we now know as the Philly Show had about 4,700 attendees at their September offering, which was a tremendously huge amount for the time. TTS offered their own price guide as part of their "Checklist" book as 1977 ended, which added to the data collectors and dealers could also glean from The Sports Collectors Bible (2nd edition, also issued at year's end) and the Stirling Sports Card Catalog, which had been available since July-things were really starting to hop!

February (and March) 1978  brought remnants of the great high number case sale from the Card Collectors Company in TTS (and more indications of their somewhat infamous 1975 warehouse fire):

In addition to losing the 10% discount, note that full cases of high numbers for most years between 1962 and 1972 had dissipated, leaving only the 1,000 count offers, some of which had their pricing adjusted nominally (except for 1962 highs which had jumped almost 40% with the prior discount gone). Some low number cases had also seen their last at CCC. I have to think most cases had been sold to dealers as the pricing and volume was pretty robust for the time, even given what incredible bargains these lots were then. Indeed, some non-high number cases showed up in a Don Lepore ad a couple of months earlier.

February also brought another Lew Lipset price report on 1952 high numbers, as follows:

VG: $15-$18
EX: $16-$22

The April '78 issue of TTS had some sad news to share, namely the death of Woody Gelman (which occurred on February 9th), which would lead to a profound change at the Card Collectors Company not long after, although he had been steadily stepping back from his company.  The same issue also brought the results of the 2nd Beckett price survey and if it feels like a torch had been passed, I could not disagree. VG-EX price results for the five scarce series being tracked as part of this series on the blog were as follows:

1952: roughly 10% increases to the low series cards (still going #1-252 for the first four though), highs had gone up $2 to $10 from the year prior.

1957: roughly 10% increases as well for all but the tough 4th series, which went up from 49 cents to 58 cents.

1966: lows had no change but the highs went from 23 cents to 27 cents, which would surpass the 67's for the first time that I can find.

1967: lows unchanged, highs actually down 3 cents from 1977's .28 - don't forget there were no 1966 high numbers offered in the Card Collectors blowout ads over the prior year or so, but they had 67's.

1972: lows still at four cents (as were all cards in the first survey) but highs were broken out now at 12 cents each.

Beckett noted 343 collectors had responded to the 1977 survey, with 201 providing updates for this one. Also of note in this issue, Lew Lipset offering $15 for Ex-Mt 1952 highs.

May brought another Card Collectors Co. ad to TTS:

Following a nice but brief tribute to Woody Gelman, we can see only scant remains of the high number vending case hoard were still on hand with pricing remaining almost static.

You want the skinny on the Mick?  You got him, courtesy of Lew Lipset in the June TTS, where tracked several recent sales of 1952's #311:

• $230 - high bid (scrape on border noted)
• $245 - high bid (VG)
• $200 - St. Louis Convention ("less than excellent")
• $365 - Lew says April 1978 TTS auction but I can't find the ad (condition unknown)
• $500 - private sale (Ex-Mt)

$500 is the highest price I have seen to this point in time. Also worth noting from this issue-Card Collectors Co. was out of 1967 highs (72's as well). The hobby was really heating up and almost 7,000 people attended the spring Philly show, with 136 dealers there to sell 'em everything they possibly could.

Speaking of Lipset, in the July 1978 TTS, issued in advance of a major convention to be held at Shea Stadium the following month, he was offering $18.50 apiece for the 1952 highs and offering to buy Micks at $250, all in the usual Ex-Mt condition. Then in the August issue (Lew was really starting to monitor prices and he would eventually launch a newsletter that really delved into that subject) he noted an average price of just over $28 for Ex-Mt '52 highs. Meanwhile Card Collectors Co. continued with 12,000 count low number cases in their ad (1968-1976) indicating they were still getting direct feeds from Topps, likely after the respective prior season's returns had come back to home to roost. The highs were down to lots of 100 or 1,000 for 1962, 1965, 1968, 1970 & 1971.

A retrospective in the June 1980 issue of The Trader Speaks indicated a record sale in September of the Mantle at $1,750 while the October TTS brought news in Lipset's column of a pricing frenzy surrounding the 1967 Topps Brooks Robinson card, selling in the $35-$60 dollar range at the time, a huge amount for a late 60's card. Lew correctly pointed out the card was as obtainable as any other in the high numbers but that the pricing was speculative.  I believe the commotion concerned a much publicized vending box or two being opened at a convention (possibly in 1977) and yielding, if memory serves, only a single Brooksie.  Of course this was just a random box with somewhat typical Topps collation but it still throws off the pricing of this card today.

Speaking of 67's, a Card Collectors Co. ad in the same issue offered varying amount of mint highs from 1958-1971 but there were no 1967's to be had.  Don Lepore, though had some: 73 different, all mint, for $50 (68.5 cents each), or 100 assorted with roughly four of each number at 25 cents apiece.  He even had what looks like two vending boxes for $300, or 30 cents a throw. Those 1967 overprints were already worming their way into the hobby! And 1972 highs were 16.5 cents each in bulk.

Meanwhile, Lipset's ad makes it seem like he was holding back his 52 highs (smart man). And what to make of Evans Clagett, offering full cases of all series from 1971-77 Topps, best offer or trade? Clearly you could still buy such cards in bulk but those days were ending.

Lepore had some pricing of interest in his November 1978 TTS ad. 1,000 assorted 1967 highs with good differentiation that worked out to 32.5 cents per card.  If you could handle a little more duplication then it was 25 cents a pop. 1972 highs were up to 17.5 cents apiece if you bought 1,000 at a clip, or you could buy the entire series for $35. Card Collectors Co. had no 67's but 50 1966 highs worked out to 28 cents each. These were all advertised as mint by both dealers.

The TTS holiday issue for 1978 brought readers of The Trader Speaks a truly stupendous ad from the Card Collectors Company. An auction brought forth wonders such as a 1955 Topps Baseball Stamp of Don Mossi (earliest reference to these I've seen), some Rookie Banquet programs and a wrapper for the ridiculously rare 1970 Baseball Booklets standalone issue as Topps tried to recycle the inserts from that year as a test. But mint high numbers in quantity were back! 1968's and 1970-72's were offered at set sale pricing, with 1972 highs fetching the now ubiquitous 17.5 cents each.

And to top it off, a reprint of the 1956 Bowman Baseball designs, which set was aborted once Topps took over that storied subsidiary of Connelly Containers in February 1956, was made available. Oh yeah, Don Lepore had now formally joined forces with Richard Gelman at the CCC-crazy!

Lew Lipset in the same issue was offering EX 1952 Topps highs at $30 per card and he had a range of conditions available as well if you wanted to settle for lesser examples. The thrust of The Trader Speaks ads in general had clearly moved into the Topps and Bowman realms during 1978 and that trend would continue.  Not quite speculation yet but a "buy and hold" environment was developing.

Speaking of Lipset, January of 1979 saw him offering a full high number series of 1952 Topps with a minimum bid of $3,800! He was also selling a lot of fifty one 1957 scarce series cards for $38, or 33 for $25. A Card Collectors Co. ad in the same issue of TTS had many wondrous offerings but I'll stick with 1957 scarce series (50 for $40), 1966 highs (10 for $10) and 1967's (a bargain 50 for only $30), indicating interest in the 66's was taking off.

The March 1979 issue of The Trader Speaks had some interesting ads: an "Ex-Mt w/ staple mark on face" '52 Mantle had a minimum bid of $300 in an auction offered by V.S. Trocino, who looks to have lived quite near Woody Gelman's neighborhood. An unrelated ad in the same issue had 67 highs at $3.50 for ten. April's edition of Lipset's column brought news of an Ex-Mt auction hammer (in February) of $680 on a 1952 Mantle, noted to be a record price. Lipset also penned what I think is the first reference to the now infamous 1952 3rd series gray backs and while those are not our quarry here, it's interesting to note he sources them to Canada, which may or may not have been the case, most likely the latter.

Jumping to May, $1.50 would get you 1957 scarce series commons from The Sports Collectors Store and Tony Galovich, a name familiar to many of us "mature" collectors, was offering $550 for a 52 Mantle in Ex-Mt as the race to four figures and beyond for the hobby's eventual second most iconic card was going full blast.

As for the hobby's most iconic card, George Lyons reported in the same issue of TTS that four collectors had uncovered the five card "proof" strip that contains the T206 Wagner (and seems to have been in the great shortstop's possession when he died). I will note, that while it is irrelevant to my interest in the pricing of Topps cards through the years, this strip is not necessarily a proof but also is not necessarily from a production sheet. (UPDATE 8/25/20-I am advised it is indeed a proof).

Just for fun, here is the strip (note that it seems each card's actual edge can be seen, although lines could have been added by the lithographer to simulate same):

Also very noticeably in this issue (of 80 pages no less), buy and sell ads for wrappers were popping up and reading in hindsight you just get the feeling things were exponentially exploding.  I was only a year and a half or so from re-entering the fray at the time this issue came out but from mid-1977 on the excitement must have been through the (stadium) roof.

The June TTS brought a Lipset ad (5.2 pages no less!) with 66 different 66 highs for....$65 (Lew, that's a whiff!), so essentially $1 apiece.  And in August, amidst an impressive offering of Topps test issues and packs, Card Collectors Co. trotted out a TTS ad with 1966 highs among others. Check it out:

The 66's seem like they came from vending and what's up with that 1965 high number pricing?  So 20 cents each for the 66's, with too much of a range to determine the 67's mint price. The September TTS had some mid-series 57's at $1.25 each, as an upward trend revealed itself. In October Lew Lipset stated that he was "totally convinced" that the scarcity of the 1967 Brook Robinson and all the high numbers that year was a "complete sham" after an $80 minimum bid for one wasn't reached at a Southern California Convention. That same convention saw the 52 Mantle go for $600 in VG-Ex. Then in November Lew reported that common 1952 highs were at $55 apiece!

Want more Lew?  In the December TTS he reported the 1967 Brooks Robinson card was half as available as other high numbers but continued opining the pricing structure of the series was still a sham-go figure! Meanwhile, 1966 highs were almost non-existent in ads and auctions.

The first (dare I say landmark) Sport-Americana Price Guide came out in 1979, authored and compiled by Denny Eckes and Dr. James Beckett. Now referred to as the "Beckett Guide" it was anything but originally as the contributions of Eckes, who owned a large card shop called Den's Collectors Den in Laurel, Maryland which frequently advertised in the major hobby publications, were vital.  Their pricing of the various series and cards we are analyzing here gave us this:

1952 Highs: Mint $34, VG-EX $27. Other commons, depending on series, were between $1.05 and $1.50 in Mint with the Semi-Highs in that grade clocking in at $4.
1952 Mantle: Mint $500, VG-EX $375.
1957 Mids: Mint $1, VG-EX 70 cents. Other commons, depending on series were between 26 and 30 cents in Mint.
1966 Highs:Mint 42 cents and 30 cents in VG-EX vs. 11 cents in Mint for all other commons.
1966 Perry: Mint $3.50, VG-EX $2.50. This was consistent with other Hall of Famers in the high series.
1967 Highs: Mint 46 cents and 33 cents in VG-EX vs. 10 cents in Mint for all other commons.
1967 B. Robinson: Mint $50, VG-EX $40 The most expensive card in the entire set by a factor of 10 (the Seaver Rookie, another denizen of the nosebleed section, was $5 in Mint, Mantle, in a lower series, was $4.50 in that grade).
1972 Highs: Mint 20 cents and 15 cents in VG-EX vs. 8 cents in Mint for all other commons.

Note the spread between VG-EX and Mint was not all that much at this point.

And then, in the January 1980 issue of The Trader Speaks, Dan Dischley started a "Superstar Price Guide" with the idea it would be a recurring feature to keep up with pricing, initially through 1959's issues, since the major guides came out yearly at best. Other publications had sporadically tried to run pricing results but he was a man ahead of his times- we also get to see the 1952 Topps Mantle priced at a very gaudy $2,000 in Ex-Mt!  The 1951 Mantle and Mays cards, together with the '49 Bowman Paige and then 1952 Topps cards of Mathews, Mays Campanella and Jackie Robinson in the $300's, were the next closest superstars to the Mick. The run-up was on!

February was even hotter: $2,250 TTS guide price for the '52 Topps Mick and his high number counterpart Mathews hit $400, as did the Mantle rookie in 1951 Bowman. 1952 Topps highs in general were coming out of the woodwork, no doubt to to the robust valuations being assigned to them. Lew Lipset threw in the towel on his monthly column in light of the TTS price guide this month as well; the hobby was no longer solely in the hands of those who had guided it in the 70's.  "POR" (Price On Request) started appearing in some ads around this time on the hottest of cards.  The 52 Mantle was case #1 in this regard but the '67 Brooks Robinson also got the treatment.

Not everybody was on the POR bandwagon though-Card Collectors Co.. had a 52 Mantle in Mint (yeah, right) condition for a whopping $3,000! They also pulled their Brooks Robinson cards from an individually priced sale of 67 highs, where commons were going for 50 cents each (this steady pricing was seen elsewhere as well).  Meanwhile Hall's Nostalgia had a mint (there's that identifier again) '67 Robinson for $160 and wanted a $2,300 minimum bid for a 1952 Topps Mantle they were auctioning in "solid ex".

March TTS had 1960's Superstar Pricing with Brooks Robinson's 1967 card leading the decade at $125 (again, Ex-Mt).  No mention of the allegedly short-printed 1966 Gaylord Perry card was made though, a signal I've been looking for amidst all the noise. Meanwhile, April brought Superstar Pricing of $2,750 for Mr. Mantle-yikes! It also introduced Common and Rare/Scarce Series pricing: 1952 highs at $65 and 1957 mid's at $1.75. And in a big twist, Card Collectors Co. ran a buy ad, ranging from pre-war to 1973, although mostly they wanted Topps sets from 1957 on; guess all those blowout sales really emptied out the old garage (and probably the Topps warehouse since I think that's where all the full cases got drop shipped from)!  Sample buy prices for 1952 Topps to give you an idea of series breakdowns:

#1-250: $1.25 (fourth series end point is correct!)
#251-310: $4.50
#311-407: 35.00 (he was selling them a month later for $65)
#311 Mantle (Mt): $2,400

The Mantle price was $200 more than the offers for the three "holy grail" 1951 Major League All Star cards of Konstanty, Roberts & Stanky in Ex-Mt.  They are the possibly rarest Topps cards of the era (the "Small" 1955 Hocus Focus highs may be just as tough) so this was a sure sign Mantle's '52 card was galloping away from the pack. In addition TTS weighed in at 100 pages this month, their biggest issue ever and it was stuffed to the rafters with auctions and sales.  The frequency of articles was way down to accommodate all the dealer ads as baseball season got underway.

May started out just as hot, as the 1967 Brooks Robinson was priced at $150 in the Dischley Superstar Matrix and 1966 and '67 highs were priced at $1.25 and $1.50 respectively. Articles started appearing in a much tinier font in this issue than had been used previously. The Trader Speaks had just about maxed out its page count! 1957 scarce series commons made an appearance in ad from Joe Bratony at $2.75 apiece in NM-Mt (an early adopter of this ridiculous grade it seems); another ad toward the back from Mark Angert and Al Entin had 66 highs at 20 for $30, in what looks like average NM condition. Also, plastic sheet pricing wars were breaking out, indicating just how many collectors needed ways to store their cards.

TTS in June had the 1966 Gaylord Perry as a POR along with the 67 B. Robinson in an ad from Bluechip Sportcard. Perry was still very much an active major-leaguer so it doesn't seem like HOF run-up pricing. Generally, 1966 common highs were starting to show up in ads and auctions, bringing about $1.50 vs $1 for the 67's, so maybe the 66's were getting a little more love. A spare $3,250 would get you a NM 1952 Topps Mantle from Jim Cumpton.  I dunno Jim, got a picture? An ad for the first National Sports Collectors Convention reared its head as well.

The Trader Speaks in July brought a massive seven page ad from the Sports Collectors Store and some hints can be found on 1966 and '67 pricing.  A 1966 #598 Perry (anywhere from VG-Mint but "generally" mint) was listed for $15 and the highs were $2 a throw.  1967 brought our old "POR" friend out for #600 B. Robinson and $1.75 a pop for highs. Neither year's high pricing was showing any signs of SP awareness though. 1952 Mantle pricing elsewhere in the issue seemed to be holding steady at $3,250 in Ex-Mt and it's worth noting an absolute riot of 50's and 60's Topps cards being offered throughout the issue in multi-page ads. Also of note, what may have been the first ad from the eventual "King of Commons" Bill Henderson; we'll soon see if he was on top of SP pricing.

As the summer wore on, the Mick gained in stature with $2,500 Superstar pricing in the August TTS (another 100 page issue), although the lower graded Mantles in this issue seemed to be falling behind when accounting for price spreads between grades. The pricing on 1952 high numbers dropped to $60 while 57's remained steady at $1.75 for the scarce series cards. Reverse auctions also popped up in a few ads, indicating maybe some saturation was occurring in the hobby.

Then, the unthinkable happened when the October TTS Superstar Pricing grid (50's and 60's alternated monthly) had the 1952 Mantle nosediving to $1,750! I suspect this was due to a find of several partial 1952 high number sheets that walked into the Baltimore convention in June. 

(excerpts copyright The Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, Number 3, Dr. James Beckett and Dennis W. 

Eckes, 1981, Co-published by Den's Collectors Den, Laurel MD and Edgewater Book Company, Lakewood, OH)

While not fully showing the 100 card array, it was apparently possible to piece enough together to determine cards 311 (Mantle, 312 (Jackie Robinson) and 313 (Bobby Thomson) had been double printed.  I doubt any attention was paid to the idea (then unknown) that a full sheet of 1952's would consist of 200 cards, with each 100 card half (or "slit" in the lithographer's parlance) being what we think of as a traditional uncut sheet then and now. However given the observable differences of these three examples and no others in the series, it seems like the DP designations were correctly assigned 40 years ago.

Elsewhere in that issue Card Collectors Co. offered a complete, mint 4th series from 1957 for $400 as the TTS guide had them up slightly at $2.00 each but downward pricing continued in The Trader Speaks November issue, where the "Grid" had the 1967 Brooks Robinson's reduced to $100:

Those $1.50 prices were the same two months prior as well, when the '66 highs had caught up with the 67's.  And the 1972 nosebleed's (along with the prior two year's) were steady at 25 cents per card, unchanged from their debut pricing in April. In December however, the 1952 Topps Mantle descended even further to a mere $1,450 and '52 highs had shrunk down to $48 in the guide. The landmark 1952 set had overheated! Indeed a VG Mick in one ad was offered at $850 and Bill Henderson had common '52 highs at $5 each, EX or better condition. Dan Dischley himself was offering 1952 high number commons at $40 in mint condition, in a huge conflict of interest! 1957's 4th series continued to increase though, now at $2.25 per card per TTS.

As for the second Sport-Americana Guide, it yielded the following in 1980:

1952 Highs: Mint $55, VG-EX $44. Other commons, depending on series, were between $2 and $2.50 in Mint with the Semi-Highs in that grade clocking in at $8.25.
1952 Mantle: Mint $2,500, VG-EX $1,800.
1957 Mids: Mint $1.80, VG-EX $1.35 cents. Other commons, depending on series were between 30 and 35 cents in Mint.
1966 Highs:Mint $1.80 and 80 cents in VG-EX vs. 12 cents in Mint for all other commons.
1966 Perry: Mint $10.00, VG-EX $8.00. This was consistent with McCovey in the high series as the other HOF subject, Robin Roberts, had dropped to $6.
1967 Highs: Mint $1.50 and $1.25 cents in VG-EX However, the first appearance of Double Print pricing that I've seen started here, with a notation commons (40 or so identified) only sold at 50 cents apiece in Mint. All other commons were priced at 12 cents in Mint.
1967 B. Robinson: Mint $120, VG-EX $100. The most expensive card in the entire set still but the Seaver Rookie had impressively bounced up to $45 in Mint.
1972 Highs: Mint 22 cents and 16 cents in VG-EX vs. 9 cents in Mint for all other commons, save the Semi-Highs which were 14 cents each in that grade.

This will conclude part two of this series as more and more, pricing was determined by statistical analysis and not "feel" as page counts started to dwindle in The Trader Speaks as 1981 dawned; indeed the dimensions of the magazine itself would shrink radically come July of that year as Sports Collectors Digest and some other "tabloid" publications really came to the fore, not to mention the slick, newstand-worthy Baseball Cards magazine.  Part three will be much more focused on how the monthly and annual price guides started recording and driving prices in the hobby, which very much reflected a rapidly shifting substrate.

Cartoon Reruns

Happy Wednesday folks-more inspired research from Friend o'the Archive Roy Carlson today.

Take a look at these three Topps cards from 1966 and '67:

No apparent connection, right?  Well Mr. C has certainly found one. Check this out:

Yup, those cartoons on the '67 Ribant are recycled from 1966!  Let's take a closer look.  Here's what ended up on his 1967 card:

So poor Sammy Ellis had his cartoon hijacked and then changed.  At least both of the noted events were no hitters! Here's a little peek-a-boo or two:

Roy notes regarding the Ribant that "the 1967 finished card's left cartoon has an extra 2 hash marks by the pitcher's left arm. Those are actually a portion of the number "3" from "377", the card number that was written on Turk Farrell's 1966 cartoon. Also, based on the crudely cut and glued 1967 text board, a portion of the pitcher's glove gets covered.  One needs to look at the 1966 card to fully enjoy the full glove detail.  Plus, the 1967 text on the right cartoon was written on separate board, then apparently cut poorly, slicing a bit of the boxed "I" in the word "IN".  The artist or editor had to re-draw the left portion of the I box on the final cartoon."

Here's more from the Ribant card's back, you can see the glove is cut off on the left cartoon and the redrawn point of the I is broken on the right side one:

More cartoon fun soon!

Sign Here Kid

Happy Wednesday kids!  Back at it with some midweek cheer from Friend o'the Archive Roy Carlson.

Hobby veterans are aware that Topps used to sign up almost any and all promising minor leaguers (Maury Wills excepted!) with a contract stipulating a $5 payment to retain their rights.  Famously called "Steak Money" as the idea was the player could go buy a nice steak to celebrate, I think it's possible that term is actually a neat enhancement of "Stake Money" but no matter. Today we get a peek at one of these contracts, that of Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins no less.

Jenkins was a Barbadian Canadian from Ontario whose mother was descended from a "passenger" on the Underground Railroad. Ferguson was a tall (6' 5") righthander who came to baseball late but clearly found his path once he started playing.  His height and inexperience relegated him to first base duties initially but his arm got noticed by Gene Dziadura, a Phillies scout who roamed the province and who would work out with the young Fergie, having him throw pitches into ever shrinking targets for accuracy, chop wood to hone his delivery and heave a heavy hammer to develop his curve.

Jenkins signed with the Phillies in 1962, although his referring Scout was apparently Tony Lucadello, who also had the distinction of recruiting Mike Schmidt. His signing caught the attention of Topps of course and he signed with them on June 22nd of that year.  Here is his steak money deal; I have never seen one of these before:

Sy Berger signed a LOT of autographs on contracts over the years.  Not sure who "Parnell" was but I can advise it is not former major leaguer Mel Parnell. Perhaps a witness?

Fergie was under 21 and needed a parental signature to make it legal though:

Jenkins was actually 19 at the time - LOL!

Here is the key clause in this one:

It's a little fuzzy but in addition to the $5 Jenkins would receive $125 once he had 31 consecutive days on the active roster of a major league club. This is a phrase I have seen before in Topps contracts and it's important as it partially explains why Topps often didn't issue full cards of players who were not yet major league ready.  This applied to some degree to players that had retired but like anything else with Topps there is consistency in their inconsistency.  To wit:

1) Lou Piniella: 1964 Topps card #167 (shared with Mike Brumley as Senators Rookie Stars).  Piniella did not debut until September 4, 1964, after Washington had traded him to the Orioles. I'm assuming some rookies who had "Rookie Stars" multi-player card debuts had not yet fulfilled the 31 day requirement but must have had a side agreement to allow their premature Topps debut. Fodder for another post for sure.

2) Sandy Koufax: Retired November 18, 1966.  Team Captain on the 1967 Topps Punchout cards but nowhere to be found in the 1967 regular issue.  The Punchouts seem to have been developed and produced in late 1966, before the regular issue even.

3) Mickey Mantle: Retired March 1, 1969, Topps #500 that year. Late retirement in terms of the upcoming season but still had a card that could seemingly have been pulled given the later series it was in. Possibly the customary two year contract extension from Topps allowed this.  Too bad most other stars didn't get the career summary card. Additional fodder for the future.

Payment made:

That bank was fairly close to Topps HQ.  They used Manufacturers Hanover for their business financing but I guess the allure of a local branch of what eventually became Citibank was too convenient for them.  Note the check was issued months before he actually signed with Topps and the "pay to" field was blank. Someone (Parnell, a secretary, Berger?) other than Jenkins (see below) looks like they filled it in. I guess Sy Berger wandered around with a pile of fungible $5 checks!

Ferguson was able to endorse his own check for deposit, although I'm puzzled how he got anywhere near Williamsport at the time. I'm not positive but it looks like the local bank stamp for deposit was done on July 13th.

So the check was cut in March, paid to Jenkins upon signing in June, cashed in July but his parent didn't sign and make it legal until August-whew!

Jenkins was traded by the Phillies to the Cubs on April 21, 1966, after appearing in seven major league games the year before and one prior to the trade.  He was sent along with John Herrnstein (a scrub essentially) and Adolfo Phillips (a useful player for several years but let go in the 1969 expansion draft) for Bob Buhl (37 years old and totally shot) and Larry Jackson (three good years for the Phils, with 41 wins but still), in one of the worst trades ever in major league history.

Here's the 1966 Topps debut of Jenkins:

1967 gives us another look at his sig ("Fergie" now), and Shea Stadium, plus his new togs:

Jenkins is a guy I would see pitch a couple of times at Shea, my dad always seemed to buy tickets for games where an opposing ace would face off against Seaver or Koosman and the Mets would zip through a game in about 2 hours and 20 minutes! Sometimes we both skipped school (he was a teacher!) to go.

I saw some memorable games in the 70's as a result. I can't quite recall but I remember the Mets dropping one to Fergie 1-0 and another where I think they won in 10 but I'd need to scour Retrosheet to figure all that out.  No matter, Jenkins could pitch with the best of them and often did!

Cello There

Some really nice vintage Topps cello packs popped up recently at REA's fall auction. They are killer items of course and sometimes they give a glimpse as to when certain inserts were popped into the packs. Plus they look great! This got me thinking about a look at some of these packs that didn't push gum and were "only" brimming with cardboard.

Topps issued Baseball cards in (mostly) 12 card cello wrapped packs from 1953 onward, although 1952 cellos are alluded to by both Darren Prince and Mark Murphy in their unopened pack guides, while it's unclear if any have been seen or photographed. PSA doesn't list any in their pop reports but a non-sports issue from that year, the massively overproduced Wings set, is there.

From 1953-57 Topps issued cellos in retail boxes using Trading Card Guild packaging. This 1953 box shows one way this was done, using clear cello wraps, which is how they were issued most years:

They continued apace in 1954-56 then in 1957 Topps put some graphics on the cellos, although I am not sure why but probably an early attempt at branding their various lines:

I'm not sure how 1958 and 1959 were handled by Topps.  They were dealing with a true geographic western expansion of the game past the Mississippi River and their distribution was getting pretty far afield. They issued cellos in these years but I'm not sure if they had ten cent retail boxes that used the Trading Card Guild (TCG) boxes, stuck them in "long sleeve" 29 cent rak paks or both. At a guess I'd say both.

1959 seems to be more abundant no matter how they were issued though and that year was a seeming high point in terms of the sheer number of cards issued in the 1950's measured against the US population. By 1960 those long sleeve raks were how a lot of cellos got distributed, still in generic red, yellow and blue TCG-style livery through at least 1962 and which I will get to in a jif.

Here's a 1961 cello, I can't seem to find any with the stamp inserts and Topps may have only included them in the wax packs:

 

(Courtesy Mile High Card Company)

1962 was a different story though:

 

(Courtesy Memory Lane)

Many cellos can be found "reversed," with the folds on the front of the pack.These are the Trading Card Guild colors I mentioned earlier along with the"long sleeve" rak paks (sports raks of the era named the sport instead of saying "Hobby Cards"):

Talk about burying the lead with the currency insert!

Retail cello boxes held 36 packs at this time. It looks like the rak headers went to a kind of hybrid look in '63 then in 1964 and '65 sometimes went to set specific graphics that mentioned the Trading Card Guild again; this bastardized rak packing lasted through 1967-ish. Check out this Topps sell sheet for 1963, courtesy of Friend o'the Archive John Moran:

I haven't had any luck finding a '63 cello with a Peel Off on the back and the insert marketing schemes by set and series seemed to vary each year in the 60's. I'll keep looking as I want to document more of these. 

Topps changed the cello livery in 1964 for Baseball.  It was a special year for Topps with the 1964 All-Star Game being held locally at Shea Stadium and they did a lot of extras that year - some big (1964 Giants) and some small, like mixing up the packaging:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

I'm not sure if the cello material is a little stronger due to the coin duo inserted within but red is the theme here!  The back mentions Topps and not the Trading Card Guild:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

Meanwhile, back in Liverpool, the cello boxes were still using leftover stock I guess:

(Courtesy Lelands)

But the Beatles Color Photo raks had a nice header and then some while still identifying the Trading Card Guild:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

The '65 Baseball raks seem to be relatively hard to find (one is shown here, but here's a fugly reverse wrapped cello from the first series: 

(Courtesy Mile High Card Company)

(Courtesy Mile High Card Company)

1966 raks are much easier but we're here for the cello's:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

It has nothing to do with this post really, but my dad was a teacher who brought home all the stuff he took away from his junior high students every three or four years when he cleared out his desk. When I was 10 or so, one of the items he hauled back home was a 1964 Jerry Lumpe card.  I thought his name was the funniest thing I had ever seen at the time.  

The back includes a Ruboff of Moose Skowron. Poor guy's upside down!

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

There were 120 Ruboffs that year, issued in their own series structure in a way, 20 or 24 at a clip just doing the math.

Anyhoo....sometimes it's what's not there that tells the tale. Check out this first series pack from 1967:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

On the back?  Bupkis:

(Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

Just having the cards come out in the spring was enough incentive I guess.   Actually, Topps sometimes included inserts in the first series cellos and sometimes they did not. However, in 1967  the high numbers had an added extra.  Check out this amazing pack:

Doubly amazing actually as that Seaver rookie looks centered!  Underneath it all, was a Pin-Up:

That browning seems to be caused by the acidic pulp paper used by Topps for the posters reacting with the adhesive holding the pack together. Other cellos from other years with different inserts don't exhibit this problem. 

From 1967-69 Topps issued 48 count cello boxes and went to the three pocket "loose" 3-cell rak pak style that didn't overwrap cellos anymore. 1970 brought the bigger 33 card cello packs that came in their own little box through 1972 and I'll pick up with the 1968-69 cellos next time out.