A HOBBY WHITE WHALE HARPOONED...1946 Propagandas Montiel Stan Musial - SCAN IN SLAB

1951WheatiesPremium

I hope I didn’t oversell this one but I think I am correct. It seems to hit all the points you’d look for in such an item. The set itself is vintage (pre 1950) and catalogued and contains many of the biggest names in baseball history that were both retired (Ruth, Gehrig, Mathewson, Cobb) and active (DiMaggio, Williams, Feller, Dickey). The population on these is generally low and as they were issued with candy (?) and to then be entered into an album the condition of these is usually and expectedly low grade; many from the set have highest graded items where the grade is 1, 2 or 3. So condition isn’t a huge factor as much as just having one - especially when it comes to stars. The other harbingers of something that qualifies as a white whale besides elusive and scarce is a desirable player and I suppose if possible a rookie designation. Check and check. But to really have you jump into this thread it can’t be just any old desirable player. It has to be a no doubt top 10 All Time and first ballot Hall of Fame type of player, right? Otherwise this would be a terrible waster of your time and I’d be a bit of a troll.

I’m not that type of guy. So here it is and when PSA encases this one, it will be just their 22nd. I’m really not sure how this one will go - at all - but the highest ever graded by PSA is a 3. And again, I’m ecstatic just to have one and PSA is the best in the business so whatever grade they assign works for me. So, it will be heading to Newport Beach soon enough.

1946-47 Propagandas Montiel Stan Musial

Thanks for checking out my whale.

Happy hunting to all.

doubledragon

Holy smoke! Stans true rookie card! Nice job, captain Ahab!

ahopkins

Amazing. I salute you, Sir.

pab1969

Very nice. Congrats!

akuracy503

I always enjoy a white whale pickup story! Congratulations! That is a special one.

DBesse27

Wow, I can only imagine how you feel! Huge congrats!

I was lucky enough to harpoon my Baseball whale a couple years ago, but not my football whale yet. It surfaced a couple times last year for the first time in eons, but my harpoon tosses were errant. Someday i’ll Know how you feel today.

Again, congrats!

Stone193

Congratulations Tim!

Looking forward to seeing it graded.

1951WheatiesPremium

@doubledragon said:
Holy smoke! Stans true rookie card! Nice job, captain

Thanks - crazy that a guy with a first MLB game in 1941 HAD NO CARDS until 1946.

@ahopkins said:
Amazing. I salute you, Sir.

Salute returned.

@pab1969 said:
Very nice. Congrats!

Thank you!

@akuracy503 said:
I always enjoy a white whale pickup story! Congratulations! That is a special one.

I agree - such a great player and human. Truly befitting of a nickname like ‘The Man’

@Stone193 said:
Congratulations Tim!

Looking forward to seeing it graded.

Me too! To that end, any comments? While ANY numeric grade is fine by me, I think there’s a chance for it to pull higher than a 1 which would be really nice. Of those slabbed, I don’t see any with a stain qualifier and most are stained in some way. This one is worse on back than front but obviously bleeds through yet much of Stan is clean and untouched. It’s in pretty solid condition for the issue otherwise - rounded corners but pretty solid borders and edges, minimal creasing and no paper loss, tears or holes of any kind.

By the way, since I have a ‘full panel’ of two boxers and have seen a ‘full sheet’ it’s clear to me that this is a hand cut issue. In theory, I could probably ‘sharpen’ it some but I more than likely will leave it as is - in its acquired state.

Why mess with a good thing.

JoeBanzai

BEAUTIFUL!

JBrules

Congrats. Very nice indeed.

1951WheatiesPremium

@JoeBanzai said:
BEAUTIFUL!

I agree. Great player, great card.

@JBrules said:
Congrats. Very nice indeed.

Thank you kindly

1951WheatiesPremium

Because I geek out a little on these types of cards, I’d like to mention there are 525 cards graded in total from the set. Below, there’s the population report for the 1946 Prop Montiel Stan Musial rookie:

And here’s an article about it from waxpackgods about the how’s and whys that explain the fact that ‘The Man’ didn’t get a baseball card until this one in 1946-47.

https://waxpackgods.com/stan-musial-baseball-card/

1951WheatiesPremium

Stan Musial has departed for Newport Beach.

In a couple of weeks, there will be 22 in PSA slabs.

As for the actual grade, I’ll be happy with anything numeric. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d guess 1 with an outside shot of something higher. I’m given some hope with these two PSA graded examples:

While these two ‘Good’ cards have stains like mine does, they’re also smaller stains. I also know that standards now are tighter and those are both old flips. Still, I think have ‘more card’ than either of those two examples.

Fun to dream and fun to guess; I have to do something since I can’t wait until he’s back home!

DBesse27

I can’t stop clicking back on this thread! What a card!

mexpo75

A card like this is why we collect cards! Awesome find.

1951WheatiesPremium

@DBesse27 said:
I can’t stop clicking back on this thread! What a card!

I just sent it off to PSA so...

...MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY!!!

1951WheatiesPremium

@mexpo75 said:
A card like this is why we collect cards! Awesome find.

That is very kind of you and I thank you sincerely for taking the time to comment...

doubledragon

I too, cannot stop entering this thread for another look. It's like entering the Louvre museum to look at the Mona Lisa.🖼

1951WheatiesPremium

@doubledragon said:
I too, cannot stop entering this thread for another look. It's like entering the Louvre museum to look at the Mona Lisa.🖼

WOW!

Now that is some high praise. I very much appreciate it; I hope they’re in a similar price range one day soon.

1951WheatiesPremium

Found this one, too. Another nice looking example.

DBesse27

You bought that one too??

1951WheatiesPremium

@DBesse27 said:
You bought that one too??

Haha, no. Just like having an idea of the copies out there. I don’t think I could afford one that was already graded...

I say that because there’s a few for sale on eBay as we speak - with huge asks.

1951WheatiesPremium

This card has been logged in at PSA.

Can’t wait!

1951WheatiesPremium

Can I ask anyone who is following along - what value would YOU have put for this card? Just curious - it’s obviously tied heavy to grade and I’m not looking for offers - just what you’d put on the submission form.

An actual number, please. If you’re willing. I ask because price guide data is scarce so I kinda looked at PSA APR and did a guesstimate/average. I know we’ve got some low pop collectors - what would you have put? How much does it matter? In light of King Pokémon and his thread, I wondered more about this card and if I shorted PSA going the Express level (up to $2K)

JoeBanzai

Yours has different borders?!?!?!?

1951WheatiesPremium

@JoeBanzai said:
Yours has different borders?!?!?!?

There’s actually several different border types over the two years from what I understand. There are at least two colors orange (maybe 25%) and yellow (75%); I have seen the yellow in both solid and floral. Due to overall scarcity I am not sure if the orange is the same. Here’s a golden Ted and an orange Babe (both slabbed):

I can dig out another ‘solid’ yellow but if you zoom in on Musial there’s some white spotting to it; my own thoughts are I think ‘solid’ is just a poorly printed floral. These things are not high in production value.

1951WheatiesPremium

Here’s another ‘fun fact’ - there are back variations within the set, too. So here’s another ‘solid’ yellow - and it has the back variation I mentioned - an advertisement for a little toy store in Havana called ‘La Sortija’. This one being cleaner than Stan, you can see why I think it may just be a bad print job of the floral border. This is the same appearance as the border of the Musial, with the staining having made the white spots murkier on Stans card border. But if you zoom in, they’re there on both cards.

Fun stuff...

1951WheatiesPremium

Two different Pafko’s:

AND

JoeBanzai

Very interesting stuff!

1951WheatiesPremium

@JoeBanzai said:
Very interesting stuff!

I miss collecting like when I was a kid. You had to work, Hunt and pick to find cards for your set.

Easier isn’t always better; the fun used to be in the hunt. I’ve tried to pick sets that give me that feeling...

ahopkins

These are awesome. I may have missed it in a post above, but could you describe the paper stock of these cards? Very thin? What is the texture like?

1951WheatiesPremium

@ahopkins

I would describe it as either thick paper or very thin cardboard.

Maybe a good relatable comparison is a cheap 5x7 index card? Resume paper? Right around there - and being that most came with caramel on them and then were to be put into an album, back damage, stains and tears are really unavoidable. I am not positive as I didn’t scrutinize it for every card but for the stars, the highest grade is a 5 if memory serves...

1951WheatiesPremium

...here’s an uncut sheet. Since I’ve been to an old school candy shop and gotten candy with paper in the box, it’s not hard to imagine/guesstimate how these were distributed.

ahopkins

@1951WheatiesPremium said:

I would describe it as either thick paper or very thin cardboard.

Maybe a good relatable comparison is a cheap 5x7 index card? Resume paper? Right around there - and being that most came with caramel on them and then were to be put into an album, back damage, stains and tears are really unavoidable. I am not positive as I didn’t scrutinize it for every card but for the stars, the highest grade is a 5 if memory serves...

Thanks, Tim. Keep 'em coming.

daltex

@1951WheatiesPremium said:

I've heard they changed nicknames in the '40s because some of the '30s nicknames were too mean to call war heroes. I've never seen a card with Medwick's original nickname on it.

1951WheatiesPremium

While I admit upfront that I am staring at my card too much in this thread, the more I stare at it the more I like it and it’s condition. The words on the back are all visible and clear and the image of Musial on the front is really uninfringed upon by the staining. While I’d really like to see a designation of Fair or Good, I don’t think that is going to happen. The higher graded examples that are in this thread that I have presented have a much whiter background than mine and were almost certainly neatly trimmed at the edges to provide the squared corners.

I’m 99% certain that these are/were hand cut items so there’s nothing wrong with it - maybe I should have, too - but I like keeping most such items intact as they are. I have cut down a few hand cut items, myself, when they’re in the hand cut category, when they came with ‘extra’ to begin with and to significantly improve the look and create a clean work of art. These being my Wheaties panels: specifically and only the Joe DiMaggios.

1951WheatiesPremium

@ahopkins

Ok

I’m going to to toss this up in May pickups eventually but since you asked, this is another big name pickup for the set that I just snagged. He’ll present much better when place him in a Card Saver and I scan him in sometime next week. Obviously poor and obviously I don’t care. And I’m gonna make him look so pretty! You’ll see!

1946 Propagandas Montiel #70 Jimmie Foxx

One of my FAVORITE things about good old Double X? He was basically the basis for the stories told by (and about) the character Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks in one of his finest roles) in A League of Their Own.

1951WheatiesPremium

This set has others besides MLB players but that’s who I’m after; I don’t intend to go after the boxers, wrestlers, guys who were playing baseball in Cuba or other ‘odds and ends’ in the set. But when I saw this guy, I grabbed it for the proof of the hand cut and printing sequence aspect and information that it provides. I can’t find the scan so I pulled out the envelope it is tucked in...

That’s one of the all time great boxers at left - Jack Dempsey - so I so appreciate it on its own merits, too.

1951WheatiesPremium

Since this has morphed into a Propagandas thread as much as a white whale thread (and there’s time), here’s some of my others:

DBesse27

@1951WheatiesPremium said:

@JoeBanzai said:
Very interesting stuff!

I miss collecting like when I was a kid. You had to work, Hunt and pick to find cards for your set.

Easier isn’t always better; the fun used to be in the hunt. I’ve tried to pick sets that give me that feeling...

I do that too! And it took a couple of decades of collecting for me to recapture that feeling. When I was a kid, I collected cards of my favorite players and teams. I would trade a bigger star for a couple of cards of the player I liked more. A few years ago I finally got back to collecting that way. And I’ve never been a set builder, but my more recent pursuit of Venezuelans gives me the same satisfaction you described above.

1951WheatiesPremium

@DBesse27 said:

@1951WheatiesPremium said:

@JoeBanzai said:
Very interesting stuff!

I miss collecting like when I was a kid. You had to work, Hunt and pick to find cards for your set.

Easier isn’t always better; the fun used to be in the hunt. I’ve tried to pick sets that give me that feeling...

I do that too! And it took a couple of decades of collecting for me to recapture that feeling. When I was a kid, I collected cards of my favorite players and teams. I would trade a bigger star for a couple of cards of the player I liked more. A few years ago I finally got back to collecting that way. And I’ve never been a set builder, but my more recent pursuit of Venezuelans gives me the same satisfaction you described above.

This one is weird for me because I’m sort of going after only a portion of the set. I’d like to get all the cards of baseball players that look like the above. There’s 180 cards but a good percentage of the set is boxers and Florida International League players (the fronts look considerably different and most of the players didn’t make the bigs) and that aspect doesn’t interest me. Perhaps I’ll sing a different tune one day as I have really enjoyed the challenge of assembling this set.

Also, that Ruth card (for me) may be the best looking of all his cards. While I love the artwork featured on the various Ruth issues (and all cards), I really like a player photo on vintage stuff. As a Mantle collector, I often wondered if, for kids who collected cards without TVs in America in the 1950s, if when they collected Topps from 52-56 and then got their first pack of Topps in 1957 were like ‘So THAT’S what he really looks like!’

Put succinctly, the four ‘33 Goudey Ruth’s look a lot like the Babe. But the Propagandas Montiel is the Babe. And with the rarer orange border on an already rare issue, it’s easily one of my favorite items in my collection.

1951WheatiesPremium

@1951WheatiesPremium said:

@doubledragon said:
Holy smoke! Stans true rookie card! Nice job, captain

Thanks - crazy that a guy with a first MLB game in 1941 HAD NO CARDS until 1946.

@ahopkins said:
Amazing. I salute you, Sir.

Salute returned.

@pab1969 said:
Very nice. Congrats!

Thank you!

@akuracy503 said:
I always enjoy a white whale pickup story! Congratulations! That is a special one.

I agree - such a great player and human. Truly befitting of a nickname like ‘The Man’

@Stone193 said:
Congratulations Tim!

Looking forward to seeing it graded.

Me too! To that end, any comments? While ANY numeric grade is fine by me, I think there’s a chance for it to pull higher than a 1 which would be really nice. Of those slabbed, I don’t see any with a stain qualifier and most are stained in some way. This one is worse on back than front but obviously bleeds through yet much of Stan is clean and untouched. It’s in pretty solid condition for the issue otherwise - rounded corners but pretty solid borders and edges, minimal creasing and no paper loss, tears or holes of any kind.

By the way, since I have a ‘full panel’ of two boxers and have seen a ‘full sheet’ it’s clear to me that this is a hand cut issue. In theory, I could probably ‘sharpen’ it some but I more than likely will leave it as is - in its acquired state.

Why mess with a good thing.

In light of recent hobby stories and events, and for posterity, I should be clear that this card was not trimmed in any way by me and I will post scans of the card the day it gets home to prove that it is in the exact same condition as the day I got it. It will have the same rounded corners and stains you see above. I’m sort of extra proud of this card now. And I think it should pop today (obviously, turnaround times are not a perfect science and I’m actually quite fond of checking 100 times a day until it does, really) - so at least we’ll have a bit of good news to revel in for a bit. I hope.*

C’MON, SNAKE EYES!!! Let’s pull a TWO!**

(Here’s me if it happens...)

*If I just jinxed myself...

**You rarely here that one, huh?

doubledragon

Man, I'll tell you what, I would give my left thumb for a 1946 propagandas montiel Joe Louis. There's one on ebay, but it's $299.99. Just too far out of reach. Joe louis has always been my hero.

DBesse27

@doubledragon said:
Man, I'll tell you what, I would give my left thumb for a 1946 propagandas montiel Joe Louis. There's one on ebay, but it's $299.99. Just too far out of reach. Joe louis has always been my hero.

Somewhere Dave Kingman is weeping.

doubledragon

@DBesse27 said:

@doubledragon said:
Man, I'll tell you what, I would give my left thumb for a 1946 propagandas montiel Joe Louis. There's one on ebay, but it's $299.99. Just too far out of reach. Joe louis has always been my hero.

Somewhere Dave Kingman is weeping.

When it comes to Joe Louis, Dave Kingman can kiss my a..!

1951WheatiesPremium

You take it on faith.

You take it to the heart.

AGBCWriter

@1951WheatiesPremium said:
This set has others besides MLB players but that’s who I’m after; I don’t intend to go after the boxers, wrestlers, guys who were playing baseball in Cuba or other ‘odds and ends’ in the set. But when I saw this guy, I grabbed it for the proof of the hand cut and printing sequence aspect and information that it provides. I can’t find the scan so I pulled out the envelope it is tucked in...

That’s one of the all time great boxers at left - Jack Dempsey - so I so appreciate it on its own merits, too.

You bought it; I sold it.

1951WheatiesPremium

@AGBCWriter said:

@1951WheatiesPremium said:
This set has others besides MLB players but that’s who I’m after; I don’t intend to go after the boxers, wrestlers, guys who were playing baseball in Cuba or other ‘odds and ends’ in the set. But when I saw this guy, I grabbed it for the proof of the hand cut and printing sequence aspect and information that it provides. I can’t find the scan so I pulled out the envelope it is tucked in...

That’s one of the all time great boxers at left - Jack Dempsey - so I so appreciate it on its own merits, too.

You bought it; I sold it.

Well then, THANKS AGAIN!

Good deal on a good piece.

Got more?

Save fees!

1951WheatiesPremium

Grade is in...

As mentioned previously, I’m not too concerned with the grade on this one. However, after the last THREE submissions and their results, I have already let my CC membership lapse and it will be some time until I put another submission together.

1951WheatiesPremium

Two more comments:

1) I’ll be curious to see if this low pop card will get the ‘scanner’ treatment we’re starting to see.* I don’t know/wasn’t contacted about it.

2) I’m happy it earned a numeric grade and that I’ll have it back home before the weekend. Once in hand, I’ll scan and upload.

Thank you to anyone still following along; the 16 Likes mean a lot and I really enjoy this place and the people here. As I always say, hobbies are made better when you have people to share them with.

Good luck out there, everyone...

*PSA has started to scan some cards (pilot/test program?) before they leave Newport Beach to be called up and viable with a Certification Number check.

I don’t know how many people realize what a game changer this feature is and would be so I am very hopeful it catches on.

DBesse27

Hey Tim, I know you were hoping for a PSA 2 on your card, and it’s a totally awesome example, but I think you’re right to try hard not to focus on the grade. The fact that it’s slabbed and preserved with any number grade at all..... that should be the main focus. You know I love this card and your PM project as a whole. Congrats on getting that one authenticated and preserved! So awesome!