1979 vintage card price list

[trdcrdkid]

I got my first T206 in 1979, when I was almost 13 years old, for $1.25 from a mail-order dealer named Paul Marchant in Charleston, Illinois. It was Pfeister seated, with a Polar Bear back partially covered by glue and scrapbook residue (which I later soaked off more than a decade later). In the same order I also got my first 1933 Goudey (Hugh Critz) and my first Batter Up (Johnny Vergez), all of which I still have. For the three cards, I paid a total of $3.25 plus $1 postage, which was a lot on my 50 cents-a-week allowance.

Packrat that I am, I kept the 24-page price list from which I ordered those cards, and tonight I went downstairs and dug it out from among my collecting stuff. Below are the first page, which includes ordering instructions and Marchant's grading standards, and pages 10 and 11, which includes the prewar stuff and is where I ordered my cards from. Most of the prewar cards he had for sale were in pretty rough shape, to judge by his descriptions; I ordered a random T206 in F-G condition for $1.25, a random 1933 Goudey in Poor condition for $1, and a random Diamond Star in Poor condition for $1. (The Diamond Stars Vergez that I got was/is a real beater, but the Goudey Critz is not as bad.) Note that he had a T206 Bresnahan for $5, and a T206 Cy Young in P-F for $4, plus other HOFers for under $5. Also a T200 in G for $20, and a couple in F for $15; T205 HOFers for $10 and under, and commons in EX for $3; a couple of T209s in F-G for $6 each; a T213 Tinker in F for $10; many E90-1, E93, and E95 HOFers for under $10 (albeit in rough shape); an E90-1 Marquard in EX-MT for $15 and Matty in VG for the same price; and an E95 Cobb in F-G for $30. Note that the price gap between low-grade and top-grade cards was much, much narrower than it is today.

[darwinbulldog]

First time I've seen "VG-Mt" condition. We're other people using that designation back then?

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

First time I've seen "VG-Mt" condition. We're other people using that designation back then?

I don't know about that specific designation, but people didn't care nearly as much about condition, and grading was very subjective and slipshod by today's standards. There wasn't that much difference in value between a VG card and a Mint card (though "Mint" by 1979 standards would encompass anything from a PSA 6 to 10), so it wasn't that big a deal. When card prices rose rapidly in the 80s and some people started paying more of a premium for high-grade cards, the lax grading standards became a problem, and the TPGs came onto the scene in the 90s to address that problem.

[Luke]

$30 for the e95 Cobb must have seemed like a fortune back then. Also, it would have kind of sucked if you paid $4 for HOFer Delehanty in the t206 set, and then received Jim. And wished you'd spent $3.50 on Mordecai Brown instead

[KCRfan1]

I remember those prices......ugh.

[trdcrdkid]

$30 was a lot of money for me in 1979, requiring months of saving. I had started babysitting my younger brothers and sisters for $1 an hour by then, which gave me some extra scratch, but some of that money went to buying packs of current Topps cards, since I collected the set every year. Once a year for my birthday we would go to Pat Quinn and Don Steinbach's Sports Collectors Store in Chicago, and I went to my first card show in 1980. I seem to recall bringing no more than $30 or $40 on such outings, maybe less sometimes. I would never have spent $30 on a single card, but in 1981 I did spend $10 for my first Old Judge at a card show.

[tjb1952tjb]

Thanks for posting............interesting.