Royal Desserts Cards
 

I was admiring some rare Royal Desserts basketball cards that PWCC sold recently, but I came across something odd. PSA has these cards dated from 1952, but this is obviously wrong! Let's look at the first card:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/LhUAA...9k/s-l1600.jpg

Pollard was born in July of 1922. Now the card says he was born "27 years ago." So, how could this card have been manufactured in 1952? :confused: Let's look at another one:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HM8AA...9Y/s-l1600.jpg

Fulks (I love that last name!) was born October of 1921. The card says he is 29-years-old. Manufactured in 1952? I think not! One last one:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/pdMAA...9h/s-l1600.jpg

Mikan was born on June of 1924 and the card says he is 26-years-old.

Now, after catching this, it made me think about the others. I decided to take a look at the hockey cards (also very challenging to find), and I noticed that every card mentions what that particular player did during the 1949/50 season.

I just hope that PSA can fix this problem one day. There is a big difference between 1952 and 1950, especially when it comes to the hockey cards. This means that they were printed before the 1951 Parkhurst cards, and that's huge in my opinion.

My understanding is that they were issued from 1950 through 1952. Some of the baseball issues have variations with the players changing teams over that period. I've always had the perception that the basketball cards were much more rare, which could be from either the lack of popularity given the early days of the league or perhaps they weren't issued for all 3 years. I know nothing about the hockey issues.

ETA - You'll see some of the SGC flips with 1950-52

Well, the Gordie Howe is now a $4,000+ card in low grade.

I am attracted to the basketball and hockey issues because of rarity and star power. The baseball cards were printed in much larger quantities - look how many Musials there are on eBay at the moment. The line-up is another issue here. Nobody cares about Pee Wee, Dom Dimaggio, Andy Pafko, and yes, Stan Musial as well. The hockey cards are really tough! I only see two singles up on eBay at the moment. There is also one complete set, and it took this eBayer years to complete it! Now the basketball cards are even more difficult to find!

That PSA 2 you're referring to was a very special card. Why? Because it had full borders. The biggest problem is that kids cut these cards too close to the image, and many of them have tiny borders (or no borders at all!) Again, full-sized cards with numerical grades always bring in more money.

Alright, so the next thing I want to discuss are the blue tints. A lot of collectors are not even aware of them. Blue tints were found on the back of Royal Custard boxes only and are very rare. It looks like the Royal Custard mix might have been manufactured in smaller quantities compared to the other flavors (Lemon, Chocolate, etc.) Here is a rare Gordie Howe blue tint:

https://i.ibb.co/7XJtYm8/Blue-Tint-Howe-SGC.jpg

Now PSA doesn't know the difference between a black tint and a blue tint. They all get slabbed under the same label. So, if we look up the hockey cards on PSA's population report, we'll see that they have graded thirty-eight examples, however, we don't know how many of them are blue tints. Again, this is another problem PSA needs to fix.

Baseball Blue Tints
 

Here are all the baseball Blue Tints I have been able to substantiate.

http://five.pjdenterprises.com/royal..._blue_tint.pdf