An incredible piece of baseball history has been sold. A brick of EIGHT sealed 1952 Topps baseball wax packs was sold at auction for a whopping $873,300!
1952 Topps baseball cards are the gold standard in collecting. As the one of the most-collected sets in the hobby, the iconic release includes cards of legendary players such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and the coveted Mickey Mantle rookie card. To find sealed packs from this set is rare. Packs were released 71 years ago, ripped opened, and the cards were played with. Many unsold packs were actually disposed of by being DUMPED IN THE OCEAN! According to the PSA population report, only 20 packs have been authenticated and graded. You can see why our heads turned quickly after reading that Morphy Auctions listed a brick of 8 sealed 1952 Topps packs for auction.
According to Morphy Auctions, a small find of 1952 Topps wax packs were discovered in Seattle back in 1991.Two collectors purchased bricks of 8 packs each. One collector opened a few packs and inside was card #1 in the set, Andy Pafko. A pack-fresh Pafko is significant as kids often placed a rubber band around their stack of cards. The top card, card number 1 (Pafko) would often be damaged by those rubber bands. After sending that card for grading to PSA, the Pafko was given a grade of Gem Mint, PSA 10 - the only one known to exist. On the scale of 1-10 with 10 being Gem Mint, zero Pafko cards had even been graded a 9. To give you an idea on value, a PSA 7 was sold in 2021 for $30,463.20. The second collector held onto their brick of 8 packs which was just sold at auction.
The final price which includes the buyer's premium on the sale is $873,300!
Wonder if the buyer will open any of the packs.
We know how hard it is to resist a pack of 1989 Topps that sets you back fifty cents; can't imagine walking by 1952 Topps wax packs daily and not opening at least one. How about YOU? If you owned EIGHT packs, would you open one?
Have you seen the collection of vintage Topps complete sets we proudly purchased that includes the complete 1952 Topps baseball card set? This iconic set and others were stored in The Black Box Collection!
We had the chance to open a 1955 Bowman pack live on the main stage at the National with our sister company,
Just Collect is always buying vintage sports and non-sports cards from 1879 to 1979 as well as select modern cards. If you have a collection that you are considering selling, contact us today to discuss or get our industry-leading purchase offer. If you have a collection that you want to be appraised, please contact us and we would be happy to discuss your collection and help you understand the real cash value of your collection in the current marketplace. Check out the Just Collect Buy List.
We always offer a FREE APPRAISAL for your collection here at the Just Collect site. Just click here:
We offer many ways to evaluate your cards other than using our website, too.
If you can make the trip here like the son from my hometown did for this collection- we can make a deal at the office. We once met a father-son duo that drove eight hours from Virginia to meet us to sell a Michael Jordan rookie card stored in Tupperware since 1986 - great read here.
We keep a LIST of the card shows we'll be attending. Come stop by the Just Collect table and chat.
If you have a valuable collection and want us to come to you, we'll hop on the next plane out. We recently took a trip to California to purchase a collection that included three Jackie Robinson 1948 Leaf rookie cards that you can read about here.
We have another location in New York you can meet us at; read all the information here.
If you choose to mail your cards for an appraisal, we will evaluate your cards for FREE still. If you choose not to sell the cards, we'll ship them back with shipping fees paid by us! We can offer our FedEx account with 2-day shipping, fully insured, all covered by us. Simply contact the office to set up this option.
We've run into a wide range of people and collections over the last 25 years. Although Just Collect is known for buying vintage sports cards and especially vintage baseball cards, we are also extremely interested in buying non-sports cards, too!
Every collection and every collector is different and we treat EVERY collection with the respect and attention that we show for our own collections. We understand that many have put their heart and souls into building their collections. So when you're ready to sell, we understand the feelings that you're going through and will work with you to help you reach a decision that is a WIN/WIN, because if you're not happy, we're not happy.
Whether you have vintage cards or modern wax you want to sell, you can reach out to us any time!