An old thread that those new here may enjoy 52 Topps WRITTEN by M Fogel part 1
WinPitcher
Posts: 27,726 ✭✭✭
uesday August 06, 2002 12:08 AM
Had it not been for some lucky unusual set of circumstances, none of us who have finished the 52 Topps set could have done so. I can't think of another set where the finding of hordes of cards on two occasions made it possible to complete the most famous baseball card set in high grade. Without the two important finds of high numbered cards begining around 251 and ending at 407. {Eddie Mathew's rookie card.}
We all know the story that around 1960, Topps baseball executives ordered the high numbered cards to be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.---and they were---
This first circumstance made various high numbered cards very rare.
The second circumstance was simply that the 52 set was not distributed nationwide back in those days.
So here we are in 1986, when Al Rosen meets a fellow at the his home and is paralyzed when served on a silver tray a "dream come true" --- covered with "minty" 52 Topps cards---piles and piles stacked 15 to 20 high.
As Al later related to me once he removed himself from a catatonic state, he began shaking. {imagine Al Rosen shaking about anything}
And there they were hidden in on stack about 37 Mantle cards glowing as if the halo around Mantle head was reflecting off Al's shining dome located above his eyebrows.
$90,000 later Al leaves the domain in this New England area having spent an enormous sum of money of pictures of baseball players of which many are simply dead. Of course, his wife reacted accordingly. {Think of our clandistine behavior with our loved one when we spend $100.}
Nonetheless, the first piece of the chance of putting together the 52 set is complete. Al places an add in SCD and advertises the better Mantle cards for $3500 and the lesser grades as low as $2000. The high priced Mantles don't sell and Al eventually sells them at a discount. {let me say it for you--If only I knew then what I know now}
Well where did the cards come from---The fellow's father worked for a toy company that gave the cards as a premium to promote the sale of toys.
The only perfectly centered psa 10 Fifty two Mantle came from this sale. {See the card featured in my set registry or the Mantle player set registry.} My Mantle ended up in a card shop back east and the card was purchased by Mike Murphy {Mark Murphy's Father--Mark is the leading unopened pack and case dealer} for $8,000. The card was sold with Mike's set in Wolfer's auction run be Duane Garrett out of San Francisco around 1993 or 1994. Duane was a great person but tradgically he took his life when he jumped from the San Francisco bridge. Ultimately, the set ended in the hands of Bill Hughes of Executive Investments out of Orange County, California. He then sold the perfect Mantle card to David Hall the private owner, at that time, of PSA. {David was responsible for finally promoting slabbed baseball cards which in my opinion helped save this industry from fraud and the fatal demise of collecting untampered cards. Alan Hager was the inventor of card slabbing in the early 90's but it took David to bring credibililty to the concept because the dealers hated it. Greg Bussineau of Superior Sports card was the first major dealer to buy into the concept and yours truly was the first major collector to do so as well.}
With this backround regarding slabbed cards, David submitted the card for grading and it was, as we know graded a gem mint 10. When David was in Hawaii for the Kit Young convention, he was attempting to convince dealers to "buy" into PSA. A deal was made and if David would sell his "fabulous graded card collection" and thus, rid himself of this apparent conflict of interest David would have an opportunity to make a success of slabbed card grading. So in the summer of 1995, his collection went up for sale along with the coveted Mantle card once purchasd for $8000 by Mike Murphy the late eighties. That night when I paid $121,000 for that card, I knew I would be "beaten to death by the critlics" including my very best friend Bill Mastro. That beating dream came true. Most importantly, Al Rosen dubbed me the "Poster Boy for PSA" This is the first and only time, someone has been a pinup in Al's mind that has hair on his chest.
Well, the rest is history concerning this famous card from 1986 and---many considered the second most valuable card in the hobby. Feel free to speak your mind on this though
Well, I will stop for now. Let me know, as Paul Harvey says, if you would like to hear the rest of the story to include the famous pool table event when in the spring of 1995, David Hall, Charlie Merkel and Marshall Fogel spin the wheel in dividing one of the best partial 52 topps set available at the time while the cards rested on a nine foot pool table while the three of us are macking our picks--sweat rolling off our foreheads only because we each have the desire to best the other two. Why did Marshall, as his first pick take Clyde Klutz who name doesn't even beat in the hearts of trivia buffs. So long. Your friend Marshall Fogel
Had it not been for some lucky unusual set of circumstances, none of us who have finished the 52 Topps set could have done so. I can't think of another set where the finding of hordes of cards on two occasions made it possible to complete the most famous baseball card set in high grade. Without the two important finds of high numbered cards begining around 251 and ending at 407. {Eddie Mathew's rookie card.}
We all know the story that around 1960, Topps baseball executives ordered the high numbered cards to be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.---and they were---
This first circumstance made various high numbered cards very rare.
The second circumstance was simply that the 52 set was not distributed nationwide back in those days.
So here we are in 1986, when Al Rosen meets a fellow at the his home and is paralyzed when served on a silver tray a "dream come true" --- covered with "minty" 52 Topps cards---piles and piles stacked 15 to 20 high.
As Al later related to me once he removed himself from a catatonic state, he began shaking. {imagine Al Rosen shaking about anything}
And there they were hidden in on stack about 37 Mantle cards glowing as if the halo around Mantle head was reflecting off Al's shining dome located above his eyebrows.
$90,000 later Al leaves the domain in this New England area having spent an enormous sum of money of pictures of baseball players of which many are simply dead. Of course, his wife reacted accordingly. {Think of our clandistine behavior with our loved one when we spend $100.}
Nonetheless, the first piece of the chance of putting together the 52 set is complete. Al places an add in SCD and advertises the better Mantle cards for $3500 and the lesser grades as low as $2000. The high priced Mantles don't sell and Al eventually sells them at a discount. {let me say it for you--If only I knew then what I know now}
Well where did the cards come from---The fellow's father worked for a toy company that gave the cards as a premium to promote the sale of toys.
The only perfectly centered psa 10 Fifty two Mantle came from this sale. {See the card featured in my set registry or the Mantle player set registry.} My Mantle ended up in a card shop back east and the card was purchased by Mike Murphy {Mark Murphy's Father--Mark is the leading unopened pack and case dealer} for $8,000. The card was sold with Mike's set in Wolfer's auction run be Duane Garrett out of San Francisco around 1993 or 1994. Duane was a great person but tradgically he took his life when he jumped from the San Francisco bridge. Ultimately, the set ended in the hands of Bill Hughes of Executive Investments out of Orange County, California. He then sold the perfect Mantle card to David Hall the private owner, at that time, of PSA. {David was responsible for finally promoting slabbed baseball cards which in my opinion helped save this industry from fraud and the fatal demise of collecting untampered cards. Alan Hager was the inventor of card slabbing in the early 90's but it took David to bring credibililty to the concept because the dealers hated it. Greg Bussineau of Superior Sports card was the first major dealer to buy into the concept and yours truly was the first major collector to do so as well.}
With this backround regarding slabbed cards, David submitted the card for grading and it was, as we know graded a gem mint 10. When David was in Hawaii for the Kit Young convention, he was attempting to convince dealers to "buy" into PSA. A deal was made and if David would sell his "fabulous graded card collection" and thus, rid himself of this apparent conflict of interest David would have an opportunity to make a success of slabbed card grading. So in the summer of 1995, his collection went up for sale along with the coveted Mantle card once purchasd for $8000 by Mike Murphy the late eighties. That night when I paid $121,000 for that card, I knew I would be "beaten to death by the critlics" including my very best friend Bill Mastro. That beating dream came true. Most importantly, Al Rosen dubbed me the "Poster Boy for PSA" This is the first and only time, someone has been a pinup in Al's mind that has hair on his chest.
Well, the rest is history concerning this famous card from 1986 and---many considered the second most valuable card in the hobby. Feel free to speak your mind on this though
Well, I will stop for now. Let me know, as Paul Harvey says, if you would like to hear the rest of the story to include the famous pool table event when in the spring of 1995, David Hall, Charlie Merkel and Marshall Fogel spin the wheel in dividing one of the best partial 52 topps set available at the time while the cards rested on a nine foot pool table while the three of us are macking our picks--sweat rolling off our foreheads only because we each have the desire to best the other two. Why did Marshall, as his first pick take Clyde Klutz who name doesn't even beat in the hearts of trivia buffs. So long. Your friend Marshall Fogel
Good for you.
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Comments
Thanks, Stan/bosko56
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