1968 Topps Baseball vending box sale.
Yankees70
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Last night a 1968 Topps Baseball 3rd series vending box sold for $52,800 which includes the 20 percent buyers fee. The vending box was from the Larry Fritsh collection.
There's 86 different cards in this series so one could expect to receive 5-6 of each card. The third series includes the Bench rookie, Mantle, Rose, Yaz, plus 5 more hall of famers.
Question: For those who know about the Fritsch box collection can the winning bidder expect to find a vending box that's untouched with hundreds of potential PSA 9's or could there be corner damage on most of the cards or even a box that features ample off center cards.
Regarding the price do you think the buyer over paid or got a good deal. I'm sure the box will not be opened but I sure wish it was. Can you imagine if he finds 5 Mantle and 5 Bench rookies that are centered with mint corners. I know this is a big gamble if opened. For those of you who have opened these type of boxes how were the cards and when submitted to PSA did you receive good grades.
Comments
Dream a little dream of me.
Seems like Topps vending usually has a lot of off center cards.
https://kennerstartinglineup.blogspot.com/
All you have to do is look at my Ripping Journey to see some results. Vending is a crap shoot - you get some good and some not so good. Sometimes corners and centering are nice and other times cringe worthy. I've opened 60's, 70's and 80's from Fritsch in various sports. Some boxes when opened make you happy others make you want to cry. Nothing is a guarantee that's for sure.
First things first. There should be no expectation of a perfect collation within a vending box. To assume 5 or 6 of each card is not a good way to approach opening it, which is an almost non-issue anyways, because no one would be foolish enough to do that unless they just felt like coughing up the 50K+ for kicks.
I don't know enough about Fritsch boxes, having never purchased one, but I've heard and read enough tales of woe. Corner damage is quite normal for products stored, handled and moved numerous times. Off-centered cards are quite normal for Topps.
What I CAN tell you is this: Over 20 years ago I was able to handle the contents derived from the busting of many 2nd series and 6th series vending boxes from 1968 Topps Baseball. Beautiful cards. Dozens upon dozens which I submitted back then for the pleasure of piles of PSA 9s and even a bunch of 10s. It was a fun run with those cards although there was a lot of repetition in those players who were the most common of the commons. There's always potential to be found in a vending box, but one must approach it with the greatest amount of caution. The likelihood of striking gold is minimal. 20 years ago it was worth the effort to do so.
Did you pull any Ryan RCs from the 2nd series vending box?
Great comments guys- I appreciate your responses.
Regarding the price- Does it seem low, high, or about right?
I'm not gonna lie - it would be fun to open that sucka - but definitely risky. Nice spread of booze and cheese N crackers to soften any blows.....
My input is minimal. I purchased 4 83T vending boxes from BBCE when they were very cheap. I did the same with 82T but don't remember much since it was many, many years ago when a box was really cheap also. I do see OC cards in the rear view mirror?
Once I saw the OC cards - the trend was in that direction for 2 boxes - I asked Steve about it and he had me return the other 2 and sent me 2 from another case - cards were better but still - I saw way too many OC cards.
Considering the cost - I wasn't disappointed - I think I got a Ryno that received a 9.
Finally, my take? Unopened - racks, wax, vending...is for buying and selling - opening ya do at your own peril IMO. But, if you can afford the gamble? It's a great way to go and have fun. 👍
I wasn’t the original owner. I was working on a consignment. The cards were sourced from a very large accumulation covering many years. I don’t recall much discussion about the Ryan’s. But, considering how much there was in the monster boxes, somebody got a handful of them and maybe did a happy dance. 😉
There's nothing like opening a vending box and one corner on every card is just so so slightly dinged because of how it was stored or moved around. So many perfect cards other than one corner.
Makes you want to run into traffic...
On the other hand, getting one where they're all pristine and every card is clean of any stain or residue is like getting all green lights in rush hour.
That and a big bag of THC gummies
Sorry to bring this up again: What's your opinions on the price? To high, to low, or about right?
My experience opening hundreds of FASC vending boxes from the 70s and 80s is that 1-2% will have a good shot at PSA 10 and 5-10% will be solid PSA 9. Based on my observed odds, I would say the price paid was about right, and assumes the PSA 9 cards will be a few of the major stars from this short series.
Honestly, in the current environment, anything rarely seen for sale is priced too low. The cyclical nature of our business predicates upward movement almost every time. If someone paid 50K+ for an undeterminable asset, it's safe to assume that someday the next buyer will pay even more for it.
I am skeptical of Fritsch vending.
I think steve only wraps vending from a case he opens at this point.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
what's your thoughts?
I'm guessing that he's counting all the cards in the box to make sure they're all there and none of his customers get cheated 😳
How much did it sale for is one of the funniest and most ignorant things I've ever heard.
It's definitely a crap shoot at today's grading costs and the way PSA grades vintage. I recently subbed a beautiful Bench RC that was nicer than my PSA 8 in my set. It came back a 7. It used to be hard to get 7's on 1968s because 8s and 9s were so easy. Now it's hard to get PSA 8 or better on them. It's a joke.
That’s why my last PSA submission that’s going on 7 weeks overdue will be my last. If it’s a star card it’s coming back at least 1 grade lower than it should be
Larry and the crew were pulling from vending to complete sets. unless their vending boxes were directly from a sealed case, i would always wonder if a few cards (or more) were pulled out of any box to complete a set.
see the image above
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
That's not their unopened vending. Fritsch stored the vintage singles that he listed in their catalog in vending boxes, which is where they were usually sourced from as well. Context usually helps when it comes to pictures. I can also say that their 83 vending boxes have some of the best centered 83's I've ever pulled.
They didn't have easy access to 800 count card boxes so he repurposed the vending boxes to store the cards.
Remember when everyone made a big deal about the 71s from Fritsch going for $14K in those Mastro auctions in the 00s? I mean it was shill bidding sure, but seems like a steal.
Don't vending boxes have an "untouched" pattern that is
easily recognized when the box is opened? When the box
is searched for even a couple of cards that "pattern" is lost.
If it is only a few cards, there would be minimal disruption to the pattern. I would bet most people couldn't tell the difference.
Late 60's and early to mid 70's non-sports
I am fired up to reel this whale in!
good luck Tom
This box includes cards from series 1 2 and 3 right? Or is it just 3?
WOW….Mantle, Bench RC, Rose, Yaz, Killebrew to name a few!! What a box, what a series…congrats!
Good luck on the break…
One good detail about the whole fritsch company on the topic of unopened and searched items or what not. They never really had or sold a bunch of graded cards if I recall. Just sets and random stuff. So they didn’t cherry pick them. From My view on the outside. They didn’t have a deal like 4sharp which would give huge red flags. I’m glad this stash was saved by his family company. Cool stuff! I would like to know they exact numbers in his inventory of course!!!!
3
You sure?
No but it helps. Either way I can’t wait to see this opened if it is. Epic rip!! I was a bidder on it but couldn’t come close to winning it. I knew I would open it if I did.
Appreciate it! I likely won't be ripping
BOOOooooooooo HIssssss
Do 100 5 card lots at 1000.00 a slot. 86 card series. Mantle,Bench,Rose 1 in 6 odds for one of the keys.
Do it now.
or 50 slots 1500 10 cards a slot 1 in 3 gets a big star. And could even have 20% of the break for 1 card slots.Ehhhh Would be epic!
Nickel packs with gum cost 2x that
lmao! I'll likely be discussing the box with a couple people within the industry on doing some type of break like this at some point. In fact, I've already reached out to someone and waiting on a call back, I think this break being done live at the National would be epic!
I knew it
Lol epic