Auction of autographed Topps complete sets 1974-1990.

RedHeart54

(Well, to be technical, NEARLY complete.) Amazing. Final price was $87,750.

This DID include a '79 Munson, '78 Bostock, and about any other you can think of.

For some reason I can't get the link to work tonight.

Here's the page-- http://www.collectauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=2434

jimrad

LINK

RedHeart54

Thanks.

yankeeno7

Munsons...about 10 grand worth, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less....but are the remaining worth 78K+? Damn, I dont see it.

leathtech

very cool, but I agree probably not worth almost 90k

sbfinley

While the cards might not be worth exactly that, think of the time required to amass such a collection. That must be factored into your final price.

hammered

The time/effort someone went through to assemble this collection is mind-boggling

Cooptown

The seller of that lot is a member on SCN. I hope he's not mad that I posted one of his message board posts:

Random thoughts...

Im sure as many of you know that lot belonged to me. I just thought it was time to sell it as I see this industry never returning to the values of 5 years ago. I am 37 and I assume there are a lot of guys here that are in my generation. I love baseball and have my entire life. As a kid going to get autographs was fun to me and for the most part players were happy to sign ( you always had exceptions like Hendrick and Denny ect). Around 1991 I started seeing more and more players being rude when it came to signing. It made things nearly impossible with sets coming out that had 3-4 Griffeys and 3-4 Bonds..you were lucky to get one a year from those types of guys. Thats why I really stopped my collection around that time and just concentrated on finishing what I had going. At one point I had a run of 1981-1990 Fleer, 1981-1990 Donruss 1988-1990 Score and 1989-91 UD as well as 73-90 Topps. I have since sold off almost all of the sets. I still have about 15 sets left that I am working on completing. Things are different now. Most younger guys/girls are more fans of UFC, extreme sports and football and I feel that this current generation will be not spending money on baseball players autographs in 10-15 years when they have jobs and expendable cash for a hobby. They just dont follow baseball like the majority of us do and they could care less about getting a players autograph. Even the old time collectors who collect HOF autographs are going to be fading. Who wants to spend $300-500 for a Jeter, Pujols, Arod, Ichiro ect on a HOF plaque card. Can you imagine when those guys make it to the HOF..they have made so much money that a promoter is not going to be able to afford to bring them in for a signing. Whats $100K if you have $100+ million in the bank? Its not worth their time and most dont want to be bothered.

The break value on those sets is at least 50-100% higher than what they sold for. Someone could make really good money listing them individually on Ebay.

PowderedH2O

I have to agree. I remember when I first started writing through the mail to players in the early 80's. I wrote over 200 NBA players and got almost an 85% response rate. Were they all real? Not sure, but most were. I tried again in 1991 and the percentage was around 46%. I wrote a bunch more in 1998 and I got an even lower number. Baseball wasn't quite as dramatic, but still, the numbers came down every few years. I can't say it is the money that the players make. I think it is the hassle. In person, I used to go to Spring Training games in Florida and I would get guys like Willie Stargell, George Brett, and Dale Murphy all the time. There might be 10-15 people at the park getting autographs and that was just for the big names. The lesser name guys could walk around in their uniforms and only get asked 2-3 times for an autograph. I chatted with Pedro Martinez for about ten minutes at a Spring Training game when he was with the Expos. Nobody else even approached us. A few years ago I tried to get some Spring Training autographs "like the old days". I got two autographs at one game and one at another. Each player was hounded by at least 50-250 people. Greg Maddux was trying to get to his car and security had to pull fans off of his car so he could get into it. Why would the players of today want to put up with that sort of crap?

esquiresports

Thank is amazing! Top put that all together by 37 is really impressive. I understand his point of view, and he has all the memories from putting them together. I do believe the break-up value would well exceed the closing price but, you have to go through all of that effort.

I am about 30 cards shy of completing the 1978 Topps set. Almost all cards have been PSA authenticated. Unfortunately, I don't have the Munson or Bostock... yet.

Probstein123

incredible !! I would have bid if I had seen this auction...
simply historic...

EchoCanyon

It only had 2 bids.

And legally you can't call it a complete run, since 2 Munson years are missing.

Estil

Frankly this should be worth at least a few hundred thousand. This item should not even EXIST--how in the world was this item even POSSIBLE to assemble??? Think of all the players who either died, fled the country, or are missing right after the card was issued. Not to mention the VERY narrow window for the 1979 Thruman Munson.

TonyC

I guessed this was the work of an old-time collector who was cashing in for his retirement or something--not a 30-something who was passionate about autographs.

Kudos to him for getting into it, though it is sad that his analysis of autograph collecting has some truth in it.

EchoCanyon

Somethings not working in the math department for me.

According to a previous post, the seller is 37, ergo born in 1974.

Munson died in 1979.

That's a lot of writing for a five year old.

yankeeno7

<< <i>Frankly this should be worth at least a few hundred thousand. >>



Estil, you can buy from me ANYTIME! LOL Dont be too surprised. There are a few guys on a couple of websites who have been very successful putting together complete signed sets. Its not that big of a rarity but yes, its quite an accomplishment like when someone completes a PSA 8 set from the 60s.

MooseDog

<< <i>Somethings not working in the math department for me.
According to a previous post, the seller is 37, ergo born in 1974.
Munson died in 1979.
That's a lot of writing for a five year old. >>



Maybe I can add some insight here...

I was very a active IP autograph hunter in the 1970s. We had pretty easy access to players at hotels, airports, and even the stadiums before and after games. At the hotels there were often only a handful of other autograph hunters and for the most part the players were quite nice to you provided you yourself were polite and not pushy or annoying. Some players would literally sign whole stacks of cards at a time. I was never that greedy, but I witnessed on several occasions players signing 20-30 cards at a time sometimes. Generally not stars, mind you, but stars were infinitely less difficult to get than they are now.

Back in the day, autographs were the ugly step-child of sports collecting, cards were king and those of us who collected signed cards were accused of defacing the cards. There was hardly any crossover collectors. Many of us around the country found each other through trading newsletters like Sports Collectors Digest, The Sport Hobbyist, and The Trader Speaks, and later on Jeff Morey put out a newsletter, I believe called The Autograph Review. We traded back then, you could send a guy say 100 AL signed cards in exchange for 100 NL signed cards, things like that. Want lists were exchanged and it was really kind of a small "community" now that I look back on it.

Really serious guys would take road trips to fill their collections and even visit some of the players who wouldn't sign in the mail.

My point is, it isn't all that difficult to find mass quantities of signed cards from the 1970s and 1980s. The person here could have bought large collections for a song before the mid-1990s. However every signed set has it's quirks, and many sets simply cannot be completed, the 1973 Topps Baseball comes to mind - Clemente and the All-Time Greats cards. It's a tremendous project and while I agree with the guy that the current generation in general is not going to be interested as much in baseball, there will always be collectors, and in all forms of collecting truly unique items will always bring top dollar.