Provenance on 1953 Glendale Franks Set at Mastro's Live Auction

IndianaJones

There's an interesting story on the provenance of the "world's finest" 1953 Glendale Franks Detroit Tigers complete set being auctioned at the National Convention via Mastro's Live Event Auction. Over the last 15 years, a complete set of these babies would come up for auction only very seldom. The collector who consigned the Glendale set, once described by Bill Mastro as having a "psychotic" mindset when it came to his pickiness, only selected very nice Glendale sets or groups, at least two of which came from Mastro's auctions. These Glendale sets had once belonged to such stalwart collectors as Don Steinbach and Barry Halper. Then, the time finally came, early this century, on a cold winter's night, alone in his hobby room with strong lighting, he proceeded to cherry-pick the best cards from his THREE complete Glendale sets, as well as one large group. As he layed his triples or quadruples of each card down on the table, he pondered and carefully decided which one stood out above the rest. Some players took 5-10 minutes; others 10-15 minutes, and several nearly half an hour! After several hours, he was finally done---and exhausted. He now owned what was very likely the world's finest 1953 Glendale Franks Detroit Tigers complete set---the quintessential tough regional set from the classic '50's. He had admired these cards since first seeing them as a teenager in the early 1970's. At that time, none that were creaseless were available to him---locked up in the collections of the pioneer hobbyists until many years later! Well, over the next couple of years after he put his finest set together, he re-consigned the two lesser-condition sets back to Mastro Auctions. Thus, of the few sets offered to the hobby in the last 15 years, his gem set is actually the best of FIVE sets, counting the two he bought and re-auctioned. You know, high-grade on these brutally-tough babies begins at PSA5, with a PSA7 equivalent to an early '50's Topps/Bowman PSA9. Those five PSA8's in that set are then equivalent to '50's gum PSA10's. As far as the value of this set, obviously, you can take any price guide that has these cards and throw it away---just make sure you don't hit anybody! The guides ARE getting a trifle huge, you know. Even the stated value range in the beautiful Mastro Auctions catalog is probably very low. It is without any exaggeration or understatement to call this set and opportunity as a genuine "CHANCE OF A LIFETIME." Provenance is very important, as collectibles expert Harry Rinker emphasizes. Well, food for thought for those who relish, or now decide to savor, those beautiful Glendales. Take care. ----IndianaJones

bobsbbcards

Thank you Mr. Mastro.

IndianaJones

I am flattered that you address me as Mr. Mastro. However, I am not Bill Mastro. I am a huge fan of post-war regional/food issues, though. Have been since the '60's, when I purchased a set of 1961 Peter's Meats Minnnesota Twins from Bruce Yeko of Wholesale Cards. I've been working on researching an article(s) on regional/food issues for SCD for several years now. While I by no means know everything on these, I do know some, and have tracked some major issues for quite some time. They are fascinating to me. Now, the main reason for my responding is that I have an ADDENDUM TO MY ORIGINAL POST: It occurred to me because I mentioned that one of the Glendale complete sets that was cherry-picked once belonged to Barry Halper, a further explanation is now warranted. Barry's Glendale Franks set DID NOT appear in the huge auction of the bulk of his massive collection. Prior to that, in the early-to-mid-1990's, Barry had Rob Lifson auction a few of his cards, including his Glendales. This was done in SCD, at the time THE place to scour for good quality auction stuff. The Glendales were won by a veteran collector, and became one of the prized pieces of his collection. This elderly gentleman passed away around year 2000, and his Glendale set was auctioned via Rob Lifson again, when he was working with Bill Mastro. It was then won by the consignor of the 2007 National Event complete set. Further, Don Steinbach's Glendale set was originally won by someone else, then re-consigned several years later, and, again, won by the current consignor. Addendum done. Enough said. Whew. When I do my article(s), I'll be giving my name, of course. I really am nobody---just a face in the crowd. Cheers. --IndianaJones