[laughlinfan]

I have been meaning to pick up a copy of the auction catalog for many years, and finally did a few weeks ago from a fellow board member. For those of you Net54ers who have been around for a while, I would definitely, in the parlance of the two Bruces, be referred to as a minnow as a opposed to a whale in the hobby, but for many years I have picked up Topps production items, as I find them interesting and one of a kind, even if they are not the highest demand items out there! I especially enjoy the line art drawings from the backs of cards, and have picked up more than a few over the past 10-15 years. I missed the auction in 89 –had just gotten married and didn’t have a ton of disposable cash at the time, so I probably would have cried throughout most of the auction anyway! But back to the catalog – I was interested to see how some of the lots were described and sold. I have several pieces of art that have the Topps 1989 auction stamp, but many that don’t, so I had always assumed they were sold through another means. I had often wondered why some of them had pencil notations of FF or BB followed by some numbers. I had always assumed that was some type of Topps filing system notation, but I was surprised to find out in the catalog that these were the lot numbers that Topps used in the auction. I also read that the Topps stamping was optional, so folks could have their items stamped after the auction if they desired. I just assumed everything was stamped before the auction.

So, the auction was 31 years ago – plenty of time for some of these gems to change hands once or twice. Anybody have pics of any auction items they have picked up post auction that they would like to share? Was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of things I picked up that I did not realize were Topps auction items that were actually shown in the pictures in the catalog. Will try to share a few pics when I get my scanner fired up again!

Happy collecting!