Interesting.....starting in 1960, the Venezuelan set was issued every two years with the exception of 1967. It is also the only Venezuelan sets where the backs aren't replicated.

The '67 set was made by Sport Grafico. I do believe Topps had a hand in those, although we'll never really know.

I guess we can surmise that the Retirado is NOT the first Topps issue retro themed set. Is there any documentation, anywhere that links Topps as endorsing the Venezuelan set? How can we be sure all of these sets were not knock offs from Sport Grafico?

Bringing this thread back from the dead because I couldn't find another thread dedicated to all Venezuelan issues.

New to the board and a big time collector of Topps Braves team sets. It is my mission to collect every base card Topps ever made of every Mil./Atl. Braves, from '51 up to today. So far everything's great and I have 68 through today completed, plus a lot of years more than half way done.

While collecting I stumbled upon the existence of VZ cards and have been fascinated ever since. Not only that, but I expanded my search to include both VZ and OPC cards, as they were made by Topps.

So, now I'm on the hunt for Braves VZ cards in the $5 to $10 range. I've had great success on ebay, was able to purchase the entire Braves 1960 VZ set for only $35!, and recently on the Yahoo board, which I found through posting over at Beckett. Found some really great deals for some really great players, Mathews and Torre being a couple of them.

Anyways, wanted to say hello to all of you fellow VZ collectors. :-)

I too have recently caught the Venie bug and have added 25 of them to my personal collection in the past 4 months. Speaking of team set projects, I am slowly tackling the 1968 Venie Red Sox set.

If they're anywhere near as hard as the Braves team set then I wish you good luck.

Gotta ask, who collects whatever quality they can get their hands on and who collects high grades? I'm more of a collect whatever I can type because finding high grades are hard and they're also very expensive.

I only have one expectation and that's that the front of the card doesn't have any paper loss. It can have creases, round corners, discoloration, and paper loss on the back; doesn't matter. Just gotta see the front of the card.

Well my #1 collecting focus is the Yaz master set and, since he won the triple crown in 67, he has 7 Venezuelan cards in 1968. I have 2 of those, plus 4 other Red Sox so far

Venezuelans GROSSLY underappreciated
 

You can keep your PSA 9 and 10 1968 Topps (of which there are 57,791 graded - 6,661 - 10's +51,130 unqualified 9's). Lets fight for the one and only highest graded PSA 9 1968 Venezuelan - yep, 1 card (Bob Gibson if you are curious) - no 10's. Only 8 graded 8's and ONLY a total of 772 (163 of which are 1.5 or lower) cards graded for the whole set (as compared to a little over 241,000 for the regular Topps issue). The above will begin to illustrate how ridiculously difficult the Venezuelan cards are. While there has been a bit more interest in them over the past couple of years, imho the prices these cards can still be had for do not come close to factoring just how hard they are. I loved them from the day I learned about them and they have been a pursuit ever since. Regarding condition - the Venezuelans (with some exception in the 1966 set) are frequently found with many condition problems. I have a handful of PSA 5's that are part of the pride of my collection. Thanks for reviving the thread and giving me an opportunity to rant a bit....

Happy collecting!

It was m pleasure because I love VZ cards. If I weren't so determined to collect all the Braves base cards I'd be collecting VZ cards in a second. I really do find them grossly under priced in certain ways, but do you think the demand will continue to increase enough for any of us to go out and snipe cheapies with the idea of selling later when the market increases? Or should we all just stick to collecting our special projects and let them float on? Been curious about that.

My Humble Opinion
 

Like many echoed sentiments here on the board - first and foremost I collect what I like. I have always loved the thrill of the hunt - Venezuelan cards have made for much more challenging "prey". I expect I will make a profit when the cards I own are sold. Regarding marketplace value - it would be taking a guess about the supply and demand equation - I feel relatively confident speculating that the supply side will not appreciably increase. Are there some left to discover - likely some, but not many - even if the population doubled - these are some rare cards. The demand side is the big question mark - will more people start looking for these rare Topps South American counterparts? I am surprised that the "completest" types have chosen not to define these as part of a complete Topps run - understandably from the perspective that it is unlikely any more than possibly 1 of them might complete a run. I only know of 2 collectors who have said they have a complete or near complete run of Venezuelan cards from 1959-1968 - they have been collecting Venezuelans for decades! Do more people learn about, get interested in and start pursuing these cards? That's the million dollar question! It wouldn't take many to start driving prices to the sky. The cards so far have been most popular with Team and player collectors. We'll see what the future holds.