Auction's most costly vintage baseball cards![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
The history of vintage baseball card auctions is long and colorful.
Over 5,000 vintage sports and non-sports items in each weekly auction
T-206 Honus Wagner tobacco cards have sold for upto $2.8 million in
auction. The "Holy Grail of Sports Cards", it's extreme-high auction
value can mostly be attributed to great PR and "auction fever".
It's not close to being the rarest baseball card and Honus Wagner is not
Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. Yes, the T-206 set is beautiful & special but
because of the # of cards and scarcities, few collector's try to complete,
which should keep auction competition down compared to say 1933 Goudey
or 1952 Topps baseball card issues. There's a story Wagner banned his card because he was anti-tobacco but there are other stories about financial considerations. You surely have heard of PSA and may even know that this card was the FIRST they ever graded. But did you know that dealer (B.l. .ast.o name encoded) admitted tampering with the card, perhaps having it trimmed down to size, before PSA graded it so highly for the auction.
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1971 O-Pee-Chee BaseballAlso referred to as OPC or Topps Canada, most vintage OPC sets were near replicas of the Topps cards from that year. Exactly same in design they usually only differed with the addition of French to the backs and some fronts.To the benefit of collector's OPC made several changes in their 1971 set. The most obvious and useful was a complete redesign of the card backs and the addition of another player photo ! Additionly, over 20 cards were changed including the inclusion of what could be considered the first "Traded" cards. Another difference: Topps cards #202 and #289 were changed to allow the addition of 2 more Expos to the set. The 1971 OPC set is legendary for its short print run, estimated at perhaps just 5% of Topps’ Production. This issue is considered quite elusive, even in Canada. TOP ROOKIE: Steve Garvey TOP STARS: Nolan Ryan, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Pete Rose, Ted Williams, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Don Baylor/Dusty Baker RC & MORE !!!
Click for complete
1971 OPC/O-Pee-Chee Baseball checklist and prices
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Top Vintage Baseball Card Auction Companies![]() There are more auction companies/houses than you can shake a stick at. Some offer inexpensive smaller groups and individual items while others offer massive groups with the average auction ticket price into the thousands.
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High Numbers - vintage cards were issued in the ‘50s-‘70s in a series. During the baseball season, the largest number of cards were made. As the schedule progressed into September, when there would be less interest in baseball cards , Topps for one, specifically decreased production and hence much less product was available. As a result, a scarcity-factor was created and a premium holds for these first type of "short-printed" cards.
Inserts - special randomly-inserted cards which are not part of the regular set. Many modern inserts are sequentially-numbered and rarer than the card sets into which they are inserted.
O-Pee-Chee / OPC - a subsidiary of Topps, this card issue was produced specifically for distribution in Canada.
Promotional Card - generally referred to as cards issued to show what the product will look like on release and intended to help spur future sales. Often called a "promo" card.
Reprint - cards issued to reproduce the originals. With the current trend of vintage reprints, the new versions have a distinguishing characteristic evidenced by numbering.
Restored - a card or piece of memorabilia which someone has tried to return to a "like-new" condition. A restored card is considered to be of very little value.
Rookie Card - any league-licensed, widely distributed card to feature a player in his first year of trading cards.