Huggins and Scott Auctions a 1980 Charlotte O's Police Set

ripkenintheminors

Last night, Huggins and Scott did something pretty historic as they sold a complete 1980 Charlotte O's Police set. This set includes the card called Cal's "Holy Grail." Considering that the cards were never collated in set form, it is a tough set to complete. There are fewer than 5 known complete sets.

Rather than sell the set in one lot, the set was broken down to three lots. The lots and their final prices are listed below. The prices include the commission.

1) A BVG 8 Ripken (22,515.00)
2) A PSA 7 Pepper Girls single ($1,659.00)
3) The remaining 23 cards ($1,540.50)

Although the big money was in the high grade Ripken, you can't look past the total amount that the set brought. When you combine the numbers, the set sold for $25,714.50.

bobbyw8469

Nice avatar!

Ironmanfan

those are some very strong realized prices that should get a lot of people's attention

IMF

p.s. I can only wonder what my set would realize

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>Nice avatar! >>



Thanks!

ClockworkAngel

Congrats on winning that Ripken!

Ironmanfan

<< <i>Congrats on winning that Ripken! >>



FWIW no one in this post won the Ripken

IMF

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>those are some very strong realized prices that should get a lot of people's attention

IMF

p.s. I can only wonder what my set would realize >>



The last three Police Ripkens have brought $11,850 (PSA 4), $15,000 (PSA 5), and $22,515 (BVG 8). Anyone on the fence about these cards has to be taking notice. The prices are only going to continue to climb in my opinion. Obviously I would love to know your thoughts about what the future might hold for these cards. I do think the BVG 8 final price was impacted by the grade. However, this is one of those cards where it's more about owning one than holding out for a higher grade. Once upon a time I was laughed at when I said that it is easier to wake up and find a T206 Wagner for sale than a Police Ripken. Fast forward a few years and that claim is holding up and fewer people are laughing.

In regards to a complete set, I think $20K is the standard after what happened last night. The Huggins and Scott set nearly hit $26K and that was with a high grade Ripken.

Amazing to see how far these cards have come.

ripkenintheminors

That Ripken was too much for this guy to afford!

esquiresports

Amazingly low population number. You mention the card has come a long way price-wise. Can you share older sales data? I would be interested to see what I missed out on. Thanks

ripkenintheminors

Here's the data from before the price explosion. All of these prices are for Police Ripkens.


Card Status: SGC 80

Auction: Huggins and Scott

Final Price: $2,300 before commission (15%)

Date of Sale: October 4, 2006



Card Status: PSA 5

Auction: Ebay 180015498373

Final Price: $2,025.01

Date of Sale: August 13, 2006



Card Status: PSA 6 (MK Designation)

Auction: Ebay 180019104784

Final Price: $1,236.00

Date of Sale: August 23, 2006



Card Status: PSA 5 (MK Designation)

Auction: Ebay 180028833159

Final Price: $722.00

Date of Sale: September 21, 2006



Card Status: PSA 6

Auction: American Memorabilia

Final Price: $2,167.00

Date of Sale: September 20,2007



Card Status: Raw

Auction: Sold outside auction houses

Final Price: $2,650.00

Date of Sale: June 2009

Notes: The card was eventually graded as a BGS 5.5



Card Status: PSA 4

Auction: Ebay Buy It Now

Final Price: $2,495

Date of Sale: September 26, 2012




Card Status: PSA 3

Auction: Ebay Buy It Now

Final Price: $2,000

Date of Sale: January 16, 2013




Card Status: PSA 2

Auction: Ebay Auction 111094972988

Final Price: $2,495

Date of Sale: June 11, 2013




Card Status: PSA 5

Auction: Ebay Buy It Now

Final Price: $6,500

Date of Sale: June 29, 2013

Notes: The card included 17 singles from the 1980 Charlotte O's Police set.

esquiresports

Wow. Thanks. Could have cornered the market at those prices! The only way I see this card dropping is the discovery of a horde. There are so many hardcore Ripken collectors and obviously not enough of these cards to go around. I don't know much about minor league cards, but this one (and the blue) are pretty intriguing.

ripkenintheminors

My site has more detailed information about the cards. I personally doubt there were more than 100 produced per player with 25 cards in the set. I need to do an updated population report check to see the Ripken totals. Either way, perfect storm for scarcity. Never collated, handed out by officers to kids. Most of these never had a chance. You also have to keep in mind that the players were not aware of this set. Some of the players never knew the cards existed existed until the past 10 years. Even if people had known about the Police cards, there's no guarantee there would've been interest. Consider the WBTV set. The O's spent weeks hyping up a free WBTV set to be given out. After the game, there were boxes and boxes of sets remaining. Players had the ability to take as many as they wanted. Ultimately, sets were thrown in the dumpster. This has been confirmed by players and staff.

There is a fun story about the cards that sold in August/September 2006. A person entered a card shop in the area of Charlotte with a stack of Police cards, 42 in all. In the stack of 42 were 5 Police Ripkens. The owner of the shop agreed to sell them on ebay for consignment. He broke down the non-Ripken singles and sold them in lots of 20 (263.88) and 17 (250.18). With the Ripkens, the shop owner suggested sending the cards to PSA for grading. Once the cards returned from PSA, they decided to sell them one at a time, starting with the highest grade. The first one cleared $2,000. When the third copy sold for a little above $700, the owner of the remaining Ripkens grew disappointed and refused to sell the other two copies. I still remember the night the third copy sold for $700+. I knew it was a golden opportunity, but simply did not have the money available. My personal opinion is that three copies appearing one after another gave people the false impression that the card was easy to find. Keep in mind that information about the Ripkens was next to impossible to find online prior to my site being built. I don't say that to give myself a pat on the back, just stating the facts. In 2004 I had a new job and bought a WBTV Ripken as a combination birthday present and celebration of a new job. It was in a GEM slab. I saw the slab, tried to research, and thought I was safe. Turns out it was a fake. Met a great person that was willing to teach me about how to spot a counterfeit. At this time, the fakes were selling for around $1,000. With his support, the site was developed on the foundation of educating and protecting collectors. It took awhile, but the site has built credibility. More important, it has given collectors with the ability to stay safe. It's one thing if information is not available and collectors are getting burned. Now that the information is available, they have the ability to avoid getting ripped off.

Big80s

Chris - I just wanted to say I've really enjoyed learning about these cards through your posts here and your website. I've always loved Ripken and I think anyone who's a fan of cards from the 80s can appreciate a tough-to-find item like this.

ripkenintheminors

Updated Population Report Numbers of the Police Ripken. As of February 15, 2014:

PSA: 15 copies
BGS: 3 copies
SGC: 4 copies

Total: 22 copies

The "big three" has only seen one copy come through their doors since July 2, 2013. That honor goes to PSA, who was sitting on 14 copies as of 7/2/13. Keep in mind that the numbers could be inflated due to cards resubmitted.

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>Chris - I just wanted to say I've really enjoyed learning about these cards through your posts here and your website. I've always loved Ripken and I think anyone who's a fan of cards from the 80s can appreciate a tough-to-find item like this. >>



Thank you so much. I am glad you enjoy the information shared. Been very fortunate since day 1 to have a lot of help from others. The site has grown to something I never imagined thanks to folks like Ironmanfan. He's been so gracious to share his knowledge as well as great images.

bobbyw8469

What kind of PSA grades did the 5 cards that one person have get from PSA?

ripkenintheminors

<< <i>What kind of PSA grades did the 5 cards that one person have get from PSA? >>



I only know the grades of the three that were sold in the fall of 2006. They were sold in the following order:

PSA 5
PSA 6 MK (A little girl names Bridget wrote her name on the back of the card to make sure nobody took it)
PSA 5 MK - Same situation as the PSA 6 MK above

Since he was selling them in order of best to worse, we can assume the remaining two were below a PSA 5 MK.

ripkenintheminors

Decided to go ahead and check the population growth of the WBTV cards. Here's the update:

As of July 2, 2013, the "big three" of grading services had slabbed a combined total of 46 copies of Cal's blue bordered WBTV card.

BGS: 9 copies
PSA: 34 copies
SGC: 3 copies

As of February 15, 2014, the three grading services had slabbed a combined total of 58 copies of the 1980 WBTV, an increase of 12.

BGS: 12 copies (+3)
PSA: 40 copies (+6)
SGC: 6 copies (+3)

Dpeck100

Ripken


A few questions for you.


This card looks really thin from side to side. Is this normal for the card?


There is white on four corners and the card graded a BVG 8.5. Do you think this is a fair grade?

orioles93

<< <i>Nice avatar! >>



Agreed

gemint

Interesting read. It's great when people invest the time to document cards and share it with the collecting community. By the way, did I hear something in another thread about player set registries fading out? LOL

ripkenintheminors

BVG 8 Ripken Police

Just noticed that the same BVG 8 Ripken that sold through Huggins and Scott this past February sold December 13. According to WatchCount, the card sold for $20,000, which was $2,515 less (not counting ebay PayPal fees) than the card sold for in February.