Hello Dave, Yes, the 1977 proof sheet is owned by F+W (or one of its corporate subsidiaries). Back in the hey day of sports collectors' books and periodicals at the old Krause, it was purchased in a Rob Lifson auction in, I believe 1991. We took it to a show or two to display, then it went into the company vault.
You'd be surprised at how insignificant the card "archives" at Krause were. In the 1980s, if we needed a card for illustration, I or Dan Albaugh would bring it in from our collections. Or Larry Fritsch was just 25 miles down the road and always generous with allowing us access to his inventory or his personal collection.
The tons of sample boxes, sets, etc. that came from the card companies over the years were always poorly filed and stored and anytime a card became valuable, it seemed to magically disappear from the files. We actually set up a hidden camera sting in the library one time and caught an employee stealing stuff.
The bulk of the modern card stuff was warehoused and, when I left Krause in 2006, I bought nearly 1,000,000 cards from all five major sports in hundreds of monster boxes and albums/sheets.
I'm almost done sorting them.
