Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Big 1964 score

It's hard to believe, but before about two weeks ago I had gotten very few cards over a period of several months. I started scanning ebay and found an auction that seemed pretty good. I ended up winning 313 different 1964s for about $90. A little more than I would like to pay but I figured at 28 cents a card I would do OK. Somehow the auction had gotten no other bids.

All I knew was that it was 313 different cards in good condition. There were a few photos, enough to let me know that it wasn't just a commons lot. In the photos were the following cards:

Rico Carty, Bill Skowron, Charlie Neal, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Stargell, Wilbur Wood, Dave DeBusschere, Brooks Robinson, Nellie Fox, Harmon Killebrew, Don Drysdale, Elston Howard, Rusty Staub, Boog Powell, Jim Kaat, Hoyt Wilhelm, Minnie Minoso, Dave McNally, league leader cards with Sandy Koufax and Carl Yastrzemski.

I figured those cards plus 300 commons was pretty good considering I only had about 50 or so cards in the set.

I'm happy to say that I did better than I thought I would. Here are the best individual cards not in the photos. Multi-person cards with Willie McCovey and Casey Stengel, Tony Conigliaro rookie, several other pretty big stars. And you'd better believe you'll see that famous Ray Sadecki card on Vintage Backgrounds at some point.
 There was also a complete World Series subset! Sure, it's a bit painful for a Yankee fan, even one who wasn't born yet in 1963, but the cards are fantastic, especially the first and last ones with Koufax.
 Finally this stack of 40 or so cards. What's so special about it? Just that they are all HIGH NUMBERS. It's about 3/4 of the high numbers in this set. No Aparacio, Mazeroski, or Niekro rookie, but Minoso, Kaat and Podres are no slouches. It was completely unexpected - there was no hint in the write-up that the lot was so heavy on the high-numbers. Had there been, this auction probably would have gone for twice the amount. These high numbers took what was a pretty good buy and turned it into a great one.

5 comments:

  1. Nice! At that price you did incredibly well!

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  2. Sweet, Sweet, sweet. I may have a Knucksie dupe, not sure. If I do it would be back home in Ocala.

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  3. Great lot! I got the Koufax World Series at the National for $10 by itself!.

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  4. Looks like you lucked in to a good one! Scores like this don't happen on eBay very much anymore -- the seller really shot themselves in the foot by not mentioning those high numbers.

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  5. But were high-number shortages a thing then, or did that just start in 1966?

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