The 1949 Bowman America Salutes the FBI set is one that I only recently discovered while browsing an auction catalog from November 1998 and ran across a photo of the wax wrapper. Here’s a photo of the front and back of the first card in the set that I grabbed from PSA’s Gallery. Isn’t it interesting how closely the back resembles its baseball cousin ..read more

I’ve never been a massive fan of the wood-grained 1962 Topps design like others, but the wax box and pack designs that year were awesome! The two display boxes and unopened wax pack pictured above were offered for sale back in 2004. The pack is an “Extra/Stamps” variation; one of the 5-cent display boxes has “All The Great Major League Stars” as its front panel slogan, while the other features the “Extra/Stamps” front slogan, with a “Mr. Retailer” and “Dimes” lid-top design. Interestingly, the “Extra/Stamps” design is featured on the 1962 Topps dealer sell sheet floating around the hobby. Al ..read more

In the fall of 1990, Topps Magazine did a ‘Focus on Football’ listing the 100 most valuable Topps football cards on the market.  Prices aside, how do you like the order? One thing I like is that three checklists made the top 10! Here’s the magazine cover in case you want to pick one up ..read more

I’ve always felt team sets were a great, accessible, and inexpensive hobby niche. So here are 200 1961 Jay Publishing Unopened Picture Pack Team Sets that were sold together in late 2004. Jay Publishing Co. actually made a variety of team collectibles in the late ’50s and ’60s, including yearbooks and picture packs. These contained 5” x 7” black-and-white baseball “cards” from specific teams and were popular ballpark collectibles. Each bag had 12 cards and originally sold for 25 cents. This particular lot included twenty GAI-graded picture packs ..read more

Here’s the original artwork painted for the 1953 Topps Bob Young card. By the way, there isn’t a single PSA Gem Mint 10 graded copy of this card in the Pop Report, so 9s are >$1k ..read more

In December 2005, Mastro auctioned off the original photo archive used to create the 1950 Bowman baseball set. Most pictures were described as 7-1/2” x 10”, with a few smaller and odd sizes, mainly in EX/MT condition. The lot comprised 252 photos representing 251 of the set’s 252 cards. Al Kozar (card 15) was missing, but a photo of Phil Marchildon (Philadelphia Athletics) was included. Marchildon was bumped from card number 140 for Pete Suder. When I first shared the photo on Twitter, Keith Olbermann replied with the following photo and wrote, “Here’s the other shoe. I got this about 15 year ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 R ..read more