Hobby history: Auction results 1977-78 (incl. 1952 Mantle), reported by Lew Lipset

[trdcrdkid]

Before the mid-1970s, there were no baseball card price guides in anything like the modern sense. There was the American Card Catalog, with its very approximate prices for average cards in different sets (plus a few rarities like T206 Wagner and Plank), and occasional attempts to survey actual market prices for tobacco cards, such as Preston Orem's in 1957 (which I posted about here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=217334) and Buck Barker in 1962 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=217680). In the first half of the 1970s there were some more attempts; George Robert Martin did an occasional price survey in The Ballcard Collector, and John Stommen briefly reported on auction prices realized in Sports Collector's Digest in late 1973 and early 1974 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=216343). Dave Meiners and Dave Goldsman wrote about card price trends in SCD in 1974 and 1976 (here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=216494), but mainly in order to complain about prices rising above what they supposedly "should" be.

It was not until 40 years ago, in 1977, that the first really systematic attempts to track and report on market prices of baseball cards began. The pioneer in this regard was, of course, Dr. James Beckett, then a professor of statistics at Bowling Green State University in Ohio as well as a serious baseball card collector. In the fall of 1976, Beckett distributed his first price survey through hobby channels, and reported the results early in 1977. He only asked about prices for an average card in VG-EX condition for each set, because that's the way "serious" collectors had traditionally thought about them; the idea of paying more for "superstar" cards was still kind of controversial, believe it or not. The only "superstar" card that Beckett asked about in that first survey was 1954 Topps Hank Aaron, which had been rising in price ever since Aaron broke Ruth's home run record, and which was the first "rookie" card (in the modern sense) to gain attention in the hobby. See this post, where I scanned Beckett's 1977 price survey and the results, along with his second price survey in 1978: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=216495

Later in 1977, Dan Dischley of The Trader Speaks decided to revive John Stommen's short-lived idea of reporting auction results. Auctions had been part of the hobby for decades (see my post about the first card auction, in 1943, here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=239891), but they had become more important through the 1970s as rapidly rising prices made it difficult for sellers to know what they should charge for a card. This was especially true of superstar cards, which were rising in price much more quickly than common cards, especially in the second half of the 1970s. Dischley went to Lew Lipset, who had only become seriously involved in the hobby a couple of years earlier, and asked if he would be interested in writing a monthly column on recent card auction results, as well as anything else he wanted to write about. This would be a sort of monthly complement to Beckett's annual price survey, with a focus on actual sale prices realized for specific cards or sets.

Lipset agreed, and his first column appeared in the October 1977 Trader Speaks (with his name misspelled in the title, a mistake that was corrected the following month). He would continue writing the column monthly for the next several years (occasionally missing a month, like February 1978), and it gradually evolved away from reporting auction results and into broader discussions of cards and card sets, leading into Lew's great work on his Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards in the mid-80s, and his newsletter "The Old Judge". This started in the August 1978 column, when he began a descriptive survey of all the Topps and Bowman sets, though he continued reporting auction results.

Below I've scanned the first year of Lew's column, from October 1977 through September 1978. You can read it for yourself, but of particular interest to modern collectors is the June 1978 column, in which he focused on the 1952 Topps Mantle, which was already rising in price a lot faster than many people expected (though not nearly as fast as it would rise in 1979-80). He followed up over the next couple of months with more reports on sales of the 1952 Mantle. After the September 1978 column, I've added the "Collector of the Month" feature on Lew from the October 1978 issue. I might post some of the later columns if there's enough interest.

October 1977


November 1977


December 1977


January 1978



March 1978



April 1978


May 1978



June 1978


July 1978



August 1978



September 1978



From October 1978

[dzolot]

Your research and how your report it is just remarkable! Thank you for your contribution to this site, but more importantly to the hobby at large!!

[Jayjones82]

Amazing Stuff!

[Jason]

Great articles David. I find the name change from the first one to the second interesting.

[BeanTown]

Great read and thanks for posting. I didn't know Lew had an address in New York. I always thought he was in Arizona during that time frame. Loved the Exhibit article which I wish I had posted on another thread. It helps explain the difference between the 1925 and 1926 set. It wouldn't surprise me if a 1/3rd of the graded 1925 Exhibits were actually 26s.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by BeanTown

Great read and thanks for posting. I didn't know Lew had an address in New York. I always thought he was in Arizona during that time frame. Loved the Exhibit article which I wish I had posted on another thread. It helps explain the difference between the 1925 and 1926 set. It wouldn't surprise me if a 1/3rd of the graded 1925 Exhibits were actually 26s.

I'm not positive, but I think Lew didn't move to Arizona until at least the 1980s. I can ask him. He's actually a member here who has only posted twice but sometimes lurks. I sent him a link to this post.

Elwood Scharf did a long series of articles on Exhibit Cards in The Trader Speaks starting in January 1978. I can post the whole series if people think it would be worthwhile.

[toppcat]

Hi David-nice to meet you at the end of the N54 dinner! IIRC Scharf's Exhibit series didn't reach conclusion before TTS folded. I wonder if he finished it off in some other publication?

[irv]

Originally Posted by dzolot

Your research and how your report it is just remarkable! Thank you for your contribution to this site, but more importantly to the hobby at large!!

I agree!

I particularly enjoyed reading about the 52 Topps Mantle card and how he thought it should level out between $250 and $500.

Out of curiosity, how does that money compare to today's?

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Hi David-nice to meet you at the end of the N54 dinner! IIRC Scharf's Exhibit series didn't reach conclusion before TTS folded. I wonder if he finished it off in some other publication?

It was a pleasure to meet you in person too, Dave, however briefly. Hopefully we can talk more at a future National.

I've just looked, and it appears that Scharf did write his Exhibit series, which included some articles on postcards, semi-regularly from January 1978 until almost the end of TTS. (It was an expansion of a series he had originally written as typewritten supplements to The Ballcard Collector starting in 1971.) In the July 1983 TTS, Dan Dischley's third-to-last issue, Scharf had an Exhibit article which he said was the 38th he had written, and he said there was enough material for three or four more. I haven't had time to dig out the August 1983 issue, but Scharf did not have an article in the September 1983 issue (Dischley's last), or in any of the six issues published by Sonny Jackson before it folded. If he did complete the series, I assume it would have been in either Sports Collector's Digest or Baseball Hobby News. I'll try to look at those one of these days when I have time.