blast from the past - huge 1960-1963 Topps lot - UPDATE

maysmantle

I want to start by sharing a fun story. When I was younger, a friend of my dad's who lived in the neighborhood asked me to stop by his house and take a look at his card collection that he kept from when he was a kid. This was probably 1990 or 91 and I was obsessed with collecting and was somewhat of an expert, especially for a 13 year old. I went over to his house with my buddy and we met up with his son who helped us go through the cards while his dad was at work.

He went up into the attic and pulled down a huge cardboard box overflowing with vintage beauties. I remember seeing original wax boxes stuffed with loose cards. Mostly 61-63s. At one point I was holding 5 or 6 Rose rookies in my hand, there were dozen's of Mantles. It was a young baseball card fan's dream. We helped sort some of the cards and I gave him an idea of what I thought they were worth. Of course, as a 13 year old I didn't have the funds required to buy much of anything from him. I remember trying to convince my dad to buy some, but no dice.

That was 22 years ago. My friend and I would still talk about that afternoon we spent looking at all these amazing cards that felt like such a find. We always wondered what happened to those cards and deep down I regretted never being able to acquire them.

Fast forward to today. I decided to try to get in contact with my dad's friend who he hasn't seen in a while. I ended up getting his email address and dropped him a note telling him about the fond memories I had looking through his card collection as a kid and I was curious what ever happened to them. Turns out, he still has them. All of them.

He got about 50 cards of the stars graded by BGS - the grades ranged from 4 to 7.5 (63 Rose and Mantle got 7.5) the rest of his cards which estimates is about 20,000 are ungraded and in "very good" condition. It's funny. My memories of these cards are that they were nearly perfect... funny what time and perspective will do.

Anyway, now on to my question. He's interested in selling parts or all of his collection to me. I'd like to be able to make him a fair offer, which I can do on the graded cards but I'm not quite sure what to do with this massive lot. I haven't seen any photos of the ungraded stuff and he lives in another state, so it will be hard to see in person.

Thoughts on what a fair price for me to pay for a 20k card lot of VG 1960-63?

Hope you enjoyed the story.

dennis07

It's time for a road trip. You just have to acquire these cards don't you?

alnavman

I agree, take a trip and see what condition is....otherwise I'd pass.....memories can be fuzzy

maysmantle

Road trip is easier said than done. We are probably 2000 miles apart. I'm in Seattle and the cards are in Texas. I could have my dad look at them as he's still in the area.

Yes, I feel like I have to get these cards, but I'm not sure what to spend on so many raw cards from that era. I'll assume the will grade similar to the stars he already graded. Is $.15 a card too low?

initialD

Cool story. Get the man a subscription to VCP and let him look up each card himself

It will give him a good idea of where he stands now with realized prices and go from there on how to ballpark the

rest of the lesser ungraded

cougar701

They're not going anywhere if you tell him you'll buy them but wanna come to look through them all to make him a fair offer. Schedule the trip out to when it works for you both... 6 month a year later whatever.

Once you see and go through them you'll be able to determine a price.

MiniDuff

I would not make condition assumptions at all. First off, a novices opinion of VG is night and day different from a TPG. This is borne out by the 4-7.5 range of what he did grade. More importantly, odds are he graded only stars and odds are also that the stars are the cards that were actually handled most. Chances are that there are going to be some better grade commons and that is where mad money is made anyway.

Make the trip.

JMHO.

maysmantle

Here's a shot of some of the graded cards. Photo is terrible but you're right. He only got the stars graded. I'll probably schedule some time to see them next time I'm in town visiting my folks.

msassin

If the commons are like the stars in the pic then I would consider them EX or better.

.50 a piece could sound low to some as you are likely getting other HOFers, high #'s, etc. and some of the cards in your scan were NM or better.

Sabrgeek

They had set up at several of the "Dallas Card Shows" when it was held at the Craig Ranch location. At the last show I set up there, one of them mentioned that they had seen every customer and no one new was coming in,

Well, at that specific show, I sold a ton of stuff to people who had never bought from me before -- IMHO they got picked of the really tuff stuff and then only had leftovers left.

maysmantle

Update - I had my dad head over there and look through the cards and take some representative samples back that he's shipping up to me. Here's some photos of the ones he's sending my way. Overall, the cards look really nice. Of course, some have way off centering but the edges and corners look great. The cards looked like they had been stored well. Including the photos below. Here's a link in case the photos don't show up below.

I'm looking at about 5000 commons and minor stars from 1960-1963 in a large set box, plus about 100 or so HOFers and RCs that he's got put in a binder.

I know the photos aren't great, but thoughts on where these might grade and any additional thoughts on a fair offer for the large lot of commons assuming this type of condition?

Thanks!

SidePocket

They look great! You can see the gloss on them in the reflection from the camera flash. Good luck!!!!

LarkinCollector

<< <i>I know the photos aren't great, but thoughts on where these might grade and any additional thoughts on a fair offer for the large lot of commons assuming this type of condition?

Thanks! >>


Looks like PSA 6-8s from what can be seen, I would probably offer 20-25 cents apiece on the commons if they all present as well as the ones pictured. That 1960 Hank looks really nicely centered, but can't tell much else from the photo.

maysmantle

I wanted to close the book on this one. Well after a bunch of back and forth with the owner of the cards, he decided to sell them all through a larger broker on the east coast. That broker went ahead and submitted about 300 of the cards to PSA and the majority came back in the 6-7 range with a few higher and a few lower. He sold several of the graded stars on eBay last month and I believe brought a bunch of the ungraded commons to the National. Without me reaching out to him I doubt he would have actually sold his collection.

I went ahead a purchased 8 of the more memorable cards from his collection. 6 of these were in BVG slabs that he had gotten graded about 15 years ago. I went ahead and cracked them out and submitted raw. The grades on those came in .5 - 1 point lower across the board with 1 staying the same (61 Mays). Even though I really didn't get a chance to buy the whole lot, I'm excited that I was able to grab several of these that I remember holding in my hand (especially the Mantles) back in 1991 as a 13 year old. These are now a permanent part of my collection.


Here's a few of the raw cards that I had back in the fall when he was letting me gauge the condition.



Here's the cards that I actually bought. The 61 Santo and 63 Mantle were submitted by the broker to PSA, the others were submitted by me.