1961 Topps

[bradmar48]

The 1960 and 1961 Topps were my card collecting "Find of a Lifetime". In 1989 I was ordering many cards from ads in SCD and the same UPS driver delivered them.One day he asked me if I knew where he could sell his childhood collection because he needed the money to pay off some bills.Because he had no idea what they were worth I told him to bring them by and I would check them out and tell him what a fair price would be.

The next time I had a delivery he brought his cards in two boot boxes and left them with me. When I opened the boot boxes there were his cards stacked in the wax boxes that they originally came in in 1960 and 1961.The cards were just as they came from the packs 30 years before. There were no high numbers but there were about 1800 of the 1960s and about 2100 of the 1961 cards.The boxes also contained about 700 cards from 1959 and about 250 from 1958 first series including almost all the yellow variation cards.

The three dealers I checked with each offered 60 cents on a dollar for the star cards and $.25 each for the commons. At that price I pulled out one of each of the nicest commons and star cards from 1960 and 1961 and all of the yellow variation cards from 1958 and purchased them for $725.I them sold the remainder to a dealer for $3870 .

I told the UPS driver I would like to purchase the wax boxes but I didn't know what they were worth. He told me that he was going to give me 5% for all my trouble and he would be glad just to give me the boxes. He was happy with $4600 for his collection.

A few months later he brought me another boot box that was his brother's that contained about 600 1961 Topps baseball, about 200 1960 Topps football and about 200 1961 Fleer Greats. I sold the 61 baseball and 1960 football for him and purchased the 1961 Fleer.