Most Undervalued Boxing Card/Set

[Box-Cards]

There are quite a few other South American, Mexican, Spanish heritage and other country's Clay/Ali issues from the late 1960s and 1970s that have been surfaced across the last 10 years or so, too. What I'm trying to do right now is decifer the extent of the 1975 Malaysian/Singapore origin Ali/Bugner commemorative Playing Card series myself, but I think that topic is worthy of starting its own whole new topic post if anyone is interested and might care to help me out.

Here is the Campeones Y Estrellas I forgot to include last time...

[eagles33]

Great info. Thanks! We're all of the perfetti cards issued as part if panels of we're some factory cut.
This sold for quite a but in eBay a while back. It was the only time I've seen it

[Exhibitman]

One of the 1975 St. James Ali's sold for $202.50 in February 2012. Only time I've seen it offered on Ebay:



Yes I am obsessive enough to save screen shots of listings...

[pkaufman]

Over 100 year old set with major stars and very tough even in mid grade.

[Box-Cards]

I've only seen this Monty Gum-Clay (aka: "Perfetti" Italy distributed) as a single before that recent 4-in-1 panel post. I'm speculating, but believe they were issued as factory-cut singles; the 4-in-1 panel likely being a sample sheet, or part of some larger uncut multi-card sheet. Anybody know differently, it'd be much appreciated if you would share so with us.

May I ask what fully was offered as an eBay description for that 4-in-1 panel?

There was a seller on eBay some time back liquidating a HUGE, extremely diverse issue years and topics' selection, Monty Gum card collection for an overseas friend of his, aged late 80s, who'd been collecting Monty issues for as long as that friend could remember. Among them were also uncut sheets, so we do know Monty either let such go or persons had access to them. I have to wonder if Monty would let such uncuts or partial panels also go to Italy except as possible sales samples.

The first time I ever saw one of these Monty-Clays was in 1996; my friend Bill Deaett (now deceased) had one he gotten off some (undisclosed) contact in Italy, saying he'd been sitting on it for a couple of years before then trying to find out more info about it first. He and I both attended the IBHOF Inductions in NY that year, with exhibitor tables at its Collector Show.

He showed me the card just before we two separately made the trip (and only because he intended to bring the card there to the show anyway, not for sale--but just to see if anyone knew anything about it.) Nobody did, but one big and highly advanced Ali card collector who saw it displayed made an offer for it that Bill said later he simply "couldn't refuse": $1,500.00

Since then, I've seen and tracked at least around (9) different other examples of it myself by chance. Only (3), and not counting Bill's which was NrMt, I would say were in the highest grade conditions. The real and full story completely behind this "Monty Produced" Clay still remains clouded.

[Box-Cards]

Thought I'd share it with you...because I created it.

Deceased (Dec. 2007) Boxing Historian, Hank Kaplan, was a very good friend of mine from the time we first met in Graziano's Lounge in Canastota, NY, at the 1991 IBHOF Induction Events weekend and right up to his passing. He was my primary mentor and key motivator encouraging me to keep working on the Ali Global Card Review project from the first time I mentioned working on it.

He was also the Chairman of the Selection Committee for IBHOF annual inductions and, as such, was not eligible to be nominated for induction himself by anybody else on that committee ... until the end of 2005 when he was talked into stepping down from his Chairmanship position so he could in fact be inducted into the IBHOF the next year, in 2006.

I had made the annual trips to the HOF's inductions for 9 years straight, 1991 to 2000, missed 2001, was there for 2002, then missed the next
three. When I heard Hank himself was being inducted in 2006, there was no way I was going to miss that one. I contacted him early and asked his permission to create a 2006 IBHOF Induction Commemorative card of him, 100 total hand-made, offering to meet him up there early to give him 75 of the 100 I would produced for his own use, my keeping 25 to help cover its production costs. He not only gave me permission, but then sent me the two photographs he would like me to use for it when I mentioned I wanted it to be simple without any text back, just mainly images with minimum face text. Hank's on its front; he is pictured with a young Clay along the ring ropes at the 5th St. Gym, Miami, in Chris Dundee's Gym on the card back.

Hank had an intimate relationship with both Dundee brothers before, during, and after Clay/Ali first came to Miami and turned Pro. He was officially the 5th St. Gym's PR Man and posed Ali for his very first "Cassius Clay" Promotional Cards--one pose of which became the basis for Ali's 1960's Exhibit card.

Of the (25) 2006 Induction Promos I kept of Hank's that year, I made sure to freely distribute about (10) of them to select dealers and exhibitors who also attended that year's IBHOF Collector Show--so that the card would legitimately acquire the providence of being considered in the future to be one of the only true IBHOF Induction Commemorative Promo-Cards that were ever released and distributed during one of the Hall's annual events. I don't really know what Hank did with any of the (75) other examples I gave him the Thursday before his Induction, but knowing him I'm sure he was generous in distributing some during and afterward. He got a real kick and was delighted when he was given them.

I saw one pop up on Ebay.UK a good while back. It auctioned off for a little over $4.50; as I figure it they cost me not just many, many hours to create but ran over twice that (min. $9 apiece) in material-supplies, etc., to do so.

Regardless I was personally involved or not, I think it is fair to nominate this 2006 Hank Kaplan/Ali-Back IBHOF 2006 Induction Promo as possibly being among THE most "undervalued" Ali cards out there today...such is life.

[travrosty]

i dont think any boxing cards are going to 'explode' cassius clay is probably one of the only ones worth buying maybe, just because he transcends boxing and is into the mainstream consciousness. all the other champions, including old time champions, cards can be had fairly inexpensively compared to their counterparts in baseball.

[jheffron]

I've been collecting boxing for quite some time. The items that will increase in value will be determined by influential marketing more than condition and rareity. I also want to say that I am not an Ali bootlicker like so many. I do not and will not collect any Ali cards because I believe he has done tremendous harm to boxing and the society in general. When I was young and impressionable I thought he was cool. But than I grew up. Just look and listen to his rants and insults to opponents and than tell your kids what a great example of decency he is.

[Exhibitman]

I agree with much of what Jim says about Ali; his behavior was horrible to Joe Frazier. I have quite a few of his earlier or obscure cards but that is more a reflection of my personal OCD with breadth of collection and history than any regard for him as a person. My personal avatars as a collector are Jim Jeffries, Joe Louis and Benny Leonard, and I will cop to a modern era collection of Lennox Lewis cards and related materials. Probably not worth the paper they're printed on but I did enjoy his career and personality.

I also agree 100% about condition. Who gives a $hit. The key to everything has been [and will be] supply; the number of cards available from many prewar boxing issues remains at a handful or single specimen for a given fighter. Under those circumstances you take whatever you can find. I just added a very rare card to my collection via trade. It is trimmed and has a back paper pull. It is also the only one I have ever seen, so I am not complaining that it is hacked up.

Not sure about the marketing as driving force idea over rarity, though. This is a field in its very early days of organization. Everything Jones [Seconds Out], Hanvey [Boxing Card Digest] and I did/do could crudely be considered marketing, but as encyclopedists it is more about kick-starting the conversation about the boxing card hobby segment as a whole than pushing individual cards to manipulate demand and pricing, which is how I define marketing. I look at my ideal result to be giving collectors the language and metrics to make for an intelligible conversation about boxing cards. That's more akin to basic organization. If a card is rare, my experience is that collectors will want it without a push if they know it exists. We are all completists and obsessives to varying degrees simply by being collectors. I've picked up stuff I never imagined collecting simply because I had to have that particular Jeffries item, for example:

That said, there are some collectors who've approached me in the past obviously trying to put a gloss on a particular issue in the hope that I'd bandwagon their views and they could use my 'blessing' to market the issue into prominence and profit from the outcome. Unfortunately, I tend to investigate things. Makes for some really funny exchanges as they try to get me to opine on the value of an item that hasn't sold, which I don't do unless you want to retain me as counsel at my regular hourly rate, in which case I will spew opinions for as long as your retainer holds out. J/K.

Ali is by no means the only investment out there, btw. Self interest precludes my explaining except to state that Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Sullivan and La Motta are all solid performers, and there are a lot more 'sleeper' items out there but I ain't letting those cats out of their bags until I finish getting mine . I may be dumb but I'm not stupid. My experience in boxing card 'investment' has been that you don't see 'breakout' performers like T206 misprints or rare backs but with the right rare items you will be able to name your price in the long term. There are also a lot more opportunities for finds and lucky breaks than in baseball card collecting. In baseball cards every jackass with a box of 1990s Donruss thinks he's gonna pay for college with it.

In general, from what I can see the boxing card market bottomed out during the fall of 2010 and has been rebounding slowly but surely since then, and has picked up steam in the last six months. The Dreier liquidation, which is still ongoing w/Legendary but not under their names [that Baguer lot in the last Legendary was theirs] was sold into a down and slowly rebounding market, so many of the same cards as Jeff Hull sold went for a lot less. I also think that the sheer accumulated wealth that was returned to the marketplace tended to depress prices. I know that the volume of material meant that I had to triage the offerings and in many cases just decide to chase after one or two lots per auction so as not to bust my budget. I ended up getting most of the top priority items on my list [some by sheer luck in post-auction trades] but pulled out of bidding on lots of other stuff that I'd have pursued hard under normal circumstances. Some of the other collectors I've talked with had much the same experience: they plunged into one or two lots and had to pass on the rest. As those lots are broken down and resold we will see the real market prices emerge.