[ALR-bishop]

Mike---unlike the 61 Dice, 66 Punch Outs, 70 Cloth, 71 Rookie Artists Proofs, which were never sold at retail and which only a handful or less ever existed, I think the Plaks did have a limited retail distribution. But I don't think they were popular, they were ugly, and most were likely disposed of unceremoniously for the most part.

Before the Mile High find and sale I had put together a little over 1/2 of the set and it was a slow slog as there were other active set or player or type collectors. After the find, I was able to complete the set, and as mentioned above know at least two other people who did as well. Now it is easy to find examples, harder to collect a specific star players, and still really tough to get the full set.

I don't think Mile High specifically revealed how many of each Plak they obtained, but even with that find, I do not think enough of the retailed product survived to ever make this an easy or inexpensive collectible. I do think you see a lot of them going unsold on ebay these days because most of the collectors who wanted them have what they want, and others do not want to pay the high prices sellers are still trying to get.

I would rate them scarce like the 68 3Ds rather than rare like the above mentioned unissued items. One big benefit of the find was it enabled us set collectors to stop looking for the apparently unissued players in the checklist

I believe it is one of the hardest issued test sets to complete...but the issued 1955 Topps Hocus Focus is tougher, and I believe the latter to be toughest issued Topps set to complete

Al