The Post War Cards Newsletter #27

Mar 23, 2023

👋 Welcome to the latest issue of The Post War Cards Newsletter, the newsletter that celebrates #TheHobby.

🗓️ Every other week, I share unique content about vintage sports cards, hobby & sports history, and industry activity with collectors.

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👑 The 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Poster

Along with their classic baseball release, the Goudey Gum Company also released an incredible set of multi-sport cards in 1933, the Goudey Sport Kings. It’s a set of just 48 cards but has athletes from various sports like baseball, football, hockey, tennis, horse racing, dog-sled racing, and … pilots.

But the set’s scarcest collectible isn’t a graded card of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Jim Thorpe, Walter Hagen, or Jack Dempsey. It’s an item that features all of them - a 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Window Display Advertising Poster.

The paper posters were issued to retailers to promote the sale of the 1933 collectibles and chewing gum and, today, are rarely found for sale; Robert Edward Auctions sold the poster pictured above for $10655 in the spring of 2012, and in December 2015, Memory Lane Inc sold an example for $17262.

The first 24 cards in the set are printed on the poster with the appearance of an uncut sheet, along with the red banners above and below it with white text.

REA wrote that Lew Lipset discovered around ten of these posters years ago (I believe in the 1970s), and most surviving posters came from that find.

I read about another poster on SportsAntiques.com, they had an e-mail exchange with a collector who had one, and when asked how he came into owning the poster, the owner replied:

Great story. A friend found two unopened boxes in a drug store back in the 1970s. Even then, the cards were valuable and most of the packs were opened and sold or traded. All the key cards were there and they were FLAWLESS except for the gum-stained backs (I've attached scans of one pack I kept). This folded poster was laid on top of the cards in one of the two boxes. I always had my sights set on the poster and about ten years later was able to trade for it and one of the boxes. The real challenge was dissolving the adhesives, which had fused together after all those years in the heat. It was painstaking work but the satisfaction in seeing it turn out so well was priceless.

So it’s possible that the posters were distributed one per box to retailers.

✍️ Great Hobby Writing

The Shlabotnik Report: My Take On A Recent TCDB Non-Sports Ranking
Sports Collectors Daily: 50 Years Later: Memories of the First WHA Trading Card Set and the Deal That Gave the League Its Big Star
Night Owl Cards: The most discussed sets according to this so-called expert
The Collector: 100 Greatest Non-Hall of Famers: #20-1
Nin Pockets: Completed Set: 1988 Score Baseball
Baseball Cards Come to Life: Cake or Gum? 1975 Joe Lahoud
Wax Pack Hero: My Take on the 2023 Topps Industry Conference
Japanese Baseball Cards: History Of Calbee Part 11 - Wrappers And Bags
Cards Over Coffee: Unfinished Cup: 1995 Skybox Impact Countdown To Impact
NJWV: 1911

🏒 A Bit More About That 1990-91 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case

In August 2022, I wrote an article about The Truly One of a Kind 1990-91 OPC Premier Hockey Vending Case. Well, the dealer who sold it to Reed Kasaoka contacted me a few months ago to share a few more details. I don’t really have any way to corroborate any of this, but this is what he told me.

The person who sold it to Reed (let’s call him Owner 3 so as not to use real names) wasn’t the original owner; the 1st owner was Ronald Mastro (whose name is written on the case pictured above), who sold it to Owner 2 who was Owner 3’s business partner.

When Owner 2 bought the case from Ron, Ron said that OPC President Gary Koreen hired him (Ron) to investigate and deal with the ongoing theft problem at OPC. Ron was to figure out who and how people were stealing numerous cases without any trace. In the end, Gary was very happy and thankful for Ron’s help in controlling the theft problem. So besides Ron’s compensation, Gary decided, as a courtesy, to give Ron the 1-of-1 vending case of 1990-91 OPC Premier Hockey Cards, which no one knew existed, and Ron promised never to get rid of.

Well, Ron sold it to Owner 2 for $10k, who then sold it, for unknown reasons, to Owner 3 for $5k. After about 12 years of owning the case, someone in the sports card world told Reed that Owner 3 had this one-of-a-kind item that no one knew existed, so Owner 3 got contacted by Reed. At the time, hockey cards had hit an all-time low, so the vending case didn’t have much value, no matter how rare it was. So Owner 3 wanted to get the case out of his safe. First, he contacted Gary Koreen to let him know he possessed the vending case and asked if it was really a 1-of-1. Gary wasn’t happy to find out Ron sold the case but confirmed it was real.

Owner 3 offered the case to Reed for $3k, but they settled on $2k since that was approximately the break-up value of the 10k cards in the case. It had a $6k price tag at the 2009 National, but I don’t know what it sold for or who has it now.

🤑 Vintage Elite Auction Results

Goldin wrapped up their 2023 February Vintage Elite Auction on March 15th, so I thought I would do a 3/2/1 rundown, sharing the three highest-priced items, two cool unopened products, and one “overlooked” item.

3 Highest Priced Items: 1951 Bowman #305 Willie Mays PSA 8 - $186000; 1962 Topps Baseball PSA NM-MT 8 Complete Set - $104580; 1909-11 T206 White Border Near Set - $103200.

2 Cool Unopened Products: 1975 Topps Baseball Unopened Rack Box - $76954; 1971 Topps Football Series 1 Unopened Cello Box - $52800. (These boxes were from the same consignor).

1 “Overlooked” item: 1922 Hello Babe Babe Ruth Pin - $2520.