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Originally Posted by judgejules1
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Mr. Erickson, I love your 1958 Hires Root Beer test issue Willie Mays. That is simply precious. I gift you an anecdote from veteran collector and dealer, Bill Zimpleman, who would have been a tween at the time they were issued, and a dedicated baseball card-lovin' kid. While interviewing him for my book on postwar regionals, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, among the yarns he told me was a memory of the Hire's Root Beer baseball cards.
Bill distinctly recalls a time back then when he was at a grocery store with his mom. While walking down the aisle where the soda pop was stacked, he immediately noticed something else on the dirty floor. Strewn here and there all down the aisle were Hire's baseball cards. They now were filthy, being stepped on and run over by dozens of grocery carts. Let your imagination run loose of how they all came to be on the floor, having been yanked out of the Hire's Root Beer six-pack cartons. My point is not that kids thought they were worthless. I'm sure some ornery kid tried to pilfer them, and his parents put the kai bosh on that scheme. Rather, my point was to illustrate how vulnerable the cards were by how they were issued---being shoved down beside a bottle in a 6-pack. That card would have been subjected to all sorts of handling by the time the child recipient was given his "free prize".
By comparison to what Bill Zimpleman saw, your Willie Mays is pristine. Moreover, it is the test issue version, for which the window of opportunity to get one of these was doubtless very brief. Wholesale Cards Co. offered complete sets of the regular Hires issue in their 1960s mail order catalog, but I would have to hunt down my 1969 catalog I have somewhere to see what, if any, that Bruce Yeko offered of the scarce test issue.
I suppose your fine Say Hey fell into the PSA hands of Darth Grader. Let's say EX-MT 6 is deadly accurate. Sometimes a "6" is GEM MINT. Know what I mean, Brian? Back in the early 70s, when I was attending my first major shows in Chicago and Detroit, Excellent-Mint was considered the top grade for a regional, Goudey, or T-206. You just did not think in terms of being able to get something that was flat out MINT among those kinds of cards. If you went in demanding Mint of those issues, the veteran collectors would deem you ignorant, stupid, dumb, infantile, and an imbecile.
Let me say this, I know all the pioneers and knowledgeable collectors of today would say you did great in getting a Mays that nice. Tis a centerpiece of distinction, mate. Well done.
---Brian Powell