Well, Sports Card Info stole my thunder on this one a little bit–but, I guess that’s what happens when you have an idea and don’t acto on it for several weeks. My recent splurge on some older packs of cards reminded me of an episode on Antiques Roadshow I saw a year or two ago, which featured some unopened packs of 1958 Topps Football cards:
First off, yes, I occassionally watch Antiques Roadshow. I think it goes back to my grandparents taking me to antique stores when I was a kid. I’m not a collector of antiques by any means, but my wife and I actually enjoy going to antique stores–she likes to look for interesting pieces for the rest of the house, while I like to look for old sports related stuff for my room. Although these days, most antique stores are worse at marking stuff up than hobby shops–I’ve seen shops charging more than book for unopened junk wax from the late1980’s.
Anyway, I remember seeing this episode and thinking “Cool, some old football cards.”
Then I thought “Wow, she’s got a pack with Johnny Unitas on the front.”
Then I heard how many unopened packs she had: 312 packs of 1958 Topps Football. I believe my response was “Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn.” Probably with a few other choice phrases. That’s several hundred thousand dollars of cards she’s sitting on, most likely.
I’ve checked around a few times, to see if they surfaced in any auctions, but no such luck. Not like I’d be real anxious to shell out $500 for a pack–but I would probably consider that over shelling out $500 for a pack of Exquisite.
[phpbay]1958 Topps Football, 5[/phpbay]
It looks like they sold 61 of them in 2007 — a lot of 60 for $14,340 and a single pack with Jim Brown on the top for $3,107.00. Seems like selling a group of them wasn’t nearly as good of a deal — worked out to be $239/pack.
Hmmm, you’re right–looks like they used Heritage Auctions. I imagine some of the reason for the discount was in the grading–but you’re right, they certainly got less than the “expert” thought they would. I imagine the poor grading of some of them didn’t help–but I would have thought they would have gotten at least $20k for a lot of 60 of them.