1950's & 60's Topps Card Populations?
 

Was it ever published, or do we know how many of any certain cards Topps produced in the 50's and 60's? For example, totally random, 1966 Topps #47 JC Martin...there are currently around 125 on Ebay for sale...but how many were initially produced? Is that a number we even want to know?

I have to image a huge percentage were thrown away, destroyed, ect...so no way of knowing how many have survived. Clearly the example is not rare and readily available for a buck or two. My thoughts then go to what percentage of Americans collect vintage, how many have that card, could someone hoard that card...etc. If 200 people wanted that card today, would 125 more appear by next week, with thousands in reserve? As a kid, I remember getting a 1959 Jim Perry card in a trade at school. In my 12 year old world in 1982 that card was unbelievably rare and old, it was all about access at that point. Lol.


Anyhow, I literally have zero idea of how many of that example were made (and I understand how cards were SP and DP). Was there 100,000, 1 million, 10 million...??? Has anyone speculated an estimated survival rate? 50%, 40%, 10%???

BTW...if this was ever discussed before I couldn't find anything after searching a bit...I know it's annoying to some to discuss topics already discussed...lol

I know it's been discussed before. There were a couple of articles that quoted Topps executives that at least gave a ballpark.

card pop
 

I thought I read..like 30 million of each card for sets from the 60s

Printed
 

About 150 million cards produced each year in the 60s
250000 of each card
Probably 2 to 3 %
6000 of each covering all grades

That would be ~250,000 of each card not 2.5 million.

Pops
 

Yep
I was looking at the 60s instead of the 600 in each set
So 2 to 3 %
Ie..1963. 5000 mantles
So should be 5000 of everything
Maybe less hi#s more low #s
Maybe more mantles were saved but #s left should be close

I think it has been discussed here before and maybe Dave Hornish had some input. In researching the Topps and Fleer legal battles in the 60s I came across some figures in some published FTC cases that Fleer filed against Topps, and posted some of them somewhere but have no idea where now

Pop
 

Lemke did a blog on it years ago
I recall it was from 59 60 61
The # I believe was 150 million it was based on topps sales reports and revenue
Check the mantle pop reports and multiply by # of cards in set
Also # went up as population of country grew

Good recall Larry

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KI...t9sE5mSHpJeFM-

cards
 

Wow,
I thought way way more then that

Didn't somewhere they talked about 30s Goudey cards..and said - 3 million of each card back this those days ??

The other interesting question that follows from those numbers, if we adopt the idea that 2-3% of each particular card have survived (though I think there is an argument that more of the "stars" like Mantle and Mays survived because they were treasured and/or kept separate of the others), how many would you have to hoard to impact the price? I'm thinking of some of the known examples where people have tried to gather up as many of a particular card as possible. Would you need 2000? 3000? And how would you successfully acquire that many of a particular card quietly? I think that there are lots of each stuck in folks' complete set runs that won't emerge or be available for sale no matter how high the price.
kevin

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/1...-baseball-card

As of 2014 one hoarder had accumulated over 4k 1964 Topps Curt Floods - still a lot of 'em out there but the price is out of proportion to the rest of the set. fwiw...

The Flood guy takes 2nd place to what the guy hoarding the 52 Bartirome has done to the price of that card

There is another 1960's Topps card that is heavily collected by a fellow board member. As active as he has been at collecting this card over the past 10+ years, my guess is he has exceeded the count that the Flood collector achieved (as he no longer appears to be actively collecting the Flood card).


Just like there are still a deluge of Floods out there, there are likely still a plethora of this other card out there. 5K of each card from the 60s seems exceptionally low (even for the higher numbers).

1952 Topps higher numbers have an estimated 5-10K copies that made it into circulation and with attrition amongst collectors, estimates are that between 2-3k of each of the 52 Hi#s remain based on pop counts.

I would agree that in the 60s that there were around 250k of each card produced by Topps....however, the percent remaining is much higher than 2-3%

pops
 

just look at the mantle pops
that will give you a very good idea
since a huge majority of his cards in all grades have been graded
if 5000 have been graded unlikely another 5000 are out there
if you want to cut off the supply of lou klimchock and want to spend 50000 to own them all...go ahead

I was going to post about him. I saw a post (can't remember if it was here or SCN) a member looking to trade a 1952 Topps Willie Mays for a 52T Bartirome. I'm a bit fuzzy on what, if any, the difference in condition was, but that a Bartirome-for-Mays even up trade is being seriously discussed shows what he's done.

Posted here in the "1950 to 1959 Baseball cards- B/S/T" forum a couple of days ago. Maybe a fair trade - even up - at today's prices; or, maybe Mays isn't enough to get a similar condition Bartirome. I still need a Bartirome for my set and missed that boat several years ago when they were still priced like the other common highs. It's much easier to find a Mays - do an ebay search for the Mays and Bartirome - you'll find lots of Mays and only a handful or so of Bartiromes available.

So here is the chart from Bob Lemke's Blog. Hope he doesn't mind that I copied it for you here. So these are wholesale sales totals. Someone can do the math to get a pretty good idea of numbers of cards available to the public.

Ok, I think it will be interesting to get folks opinion on what can other that he 64 flood is being hoarded. Here's my 2 cents: 1) 1966 #591 2) 1961 #243 smith 3) 1963 #496.

I would guess it is the 61 T Hal Smith. The other 2 are short print high numbers. It would make some sense since he hit a big HR in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the World Series.

Number 2 is the correct answer (61 242 Smith)....while over the past 10+ years I have sold many copies of this card to this board member, I do not know his reason for collecting so many copies of this card. He started collecting this Smith card long before the Flood collector started collecting his card(at least based on my ebay sales to both).

Based on another board member posts, he actively collected the 66 591 card for years......however, both the 66 591 and 63 496 have always been tough.

I had an inkling on that card from somewhere in the long ago past. I have a couple and have always thought it was colorful. I do think that the dalkowski is an sp, but there are others in that 6th series as well. Some listed in guides, but #496 usually isn't. I know Long, tresh and a few others are in the becket.

Wow, I'm learning all sorts of things today, because I always thought the 'problem' with the 1961 #242 Smith card was that it's tough to find centered...but there's someone around here hoarding them?? Yowza. And I never heard anything about the 1963 #496 Rookie Card before. Someone may be hoarding those as well? And it could be an SP? I looked in my 1963 binder and mine is in awful shape. Crap.

Anyone have any more back stories about these cards and situations? I find it oddly fascinating.

Larry-- you mentioned the Smith issue along with Flood back in a June 2013 thread. And I just recently picked up the variant to the 63 496 card that you or someone recently posted in here somewhere ( bite out of the circle around Dalkowski )

I remember that thread......that thread was a case of me asking a question that I already knew the answer to. I was looking to start a conversation about the hoarding w/o specifically mentioning it.

The last National I went to was in 2011. On that Thursday morning of the show, I bought every copy of both cards I could find...I found 2 Floods and about 40 copies of the 242 Hal Smith cards. My guess is that the Flood hoarder had a Wednesday pass but I apparently made it through ahead of the 61 242 collector. Anyway, over the next few months I sold about 60% of the 61 242 cards to this collector and the remaining 40% to the other collectors who had a glaring hole in their set.

To tie this back to the original point of this thread, I wonder what percent of the available population of these cards have been collected by each collector? Approximately 80 copies of the Smith card have sold over the past two months. For a year, close to 500 copies of this card will sell. If 500 copies sell strictly as singles on ebay each year(who knows how many more copies sold as part of lots/sets, at shops/shows), what percent of the available remaining population does this number sold represent?

I sell about 5 copies of the 63 496 card on average each year and I do not recall selling multiple copies of this card to any one collector.....likely not hoarding on this card

The 1956 Topps 21 Joe Collins card was hoarded for a while last year, I sold about 20 copies to a single collector....he stopped cold turkey and the supply/prices have returned to pre-hoard levels.

The 1960 Topps 2 Roman Mejias card use to be a plentiful common card until about mid last year. Then all of the sudden they became tough to find at a reasonable price. Now copies can sell for almost as much of a premium as the 61 Hal Smith card. However, I have not sold multiple copies to any one person so hoarding by one collector does not appear to be the cause for this card's sudden scarcity.

I don't see the fasination with collecting like that but to each his own. I'll just keep loading up on the stars from 1952-72 topps, 6 or better PERIOD.

4-small PSA boxes is all I need these days, and a small shoe box for the SGC BVG stuff :D