Anyone experienced with Cuban cards?

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Posted By: <b>Jim</b><p>I picked up a card from the 1943 La Ambrosia Montiel amateur set. Very think stock....anyone experienced with these? <br />

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Posted By: <b>Joann</b><p>Ryan Christoff is the expert and Chad Johnson is also extremely knowledgable about Cuban and Latin American issues. Wait for it. One or both will ring in eventually.<br /><br />J

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Posted By: <b>Ryan Christoff</b><p>Hi Jim, <br /><br />Did you have a question? Feel free to post it here or you can e-mail me privately if you'd prefer. <br /><br />-Ryan

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Posted By: <b>Jim</b><p>I just picked up a card from the 1943 La Ambrosia Montiel amateur set, Angel Rodriquez.<br /><br />What can you tell me as far as pricing and scarcity of these cards? Does SGC grade them?

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Posted By: <b>Jim</b><p>Anyone?

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Posted By: <b>Ryan Christoff</b><p>Jim, <br /><br />While rare by American standards, 1943 Ambrosia cards are the most common of all Cuban cards. The set features teams from the Cuban Amateur League, which was nearly as competetive and popular as the professional league during that era. The cards are extremely condition sensitive and are usually found in terrible condition, so there should be a substantial premium for nice examples. I say "should" because I haven't really seen many nice examples come up for sale.<br /><br />I should add that this is a unique set in that out of 242 cards, there are about 150 to 160 that are very, very common. If there were a group of 150 of these I could probably tell you exactly which 150 were in it. Then there are about 50-60 cards that are nearly impossible. I would say those ones are literally about 15-20 times as scarce as the others. The remaining 30ish cards are so rare I'm not entirely sure they were even produced. <br /><br />I personally have 214 of the 242 theoretical cards in the set. There are probably sets that are more complete, but I have not seen any. <br /><br />The set was supposed to be 240 cards: 12 cards each from 20 different teams. Two of the teams, however, have 13 different cards. Each album had a space for each card with the player's name beneath a square where the card was meant to be pasted. There were 6 cards per page. Each time you flipped a page in the album, it would be a new team with 6 cards on the left page and 6 cards on the right. Well, most albums are the same, with the same squares in the same places with the same player names below. But a couple albums turned up that had one different player on two of the teams. My guess is that these were the earliest albums and production stopped fairly soon after they were issued. Perhaps the players left the team and were replaced. No one really knows why. Those "13th player" cards are obviously part of the group of cards that are nearly impossible. <br /><br />I hope to find out more about this issue, especially verifying whether or not the remaining 28 cards actually exist. If anyone has any info, please e-mail me. <br /><br />Your card features Angel Rodriguez who was a member of the Regla team. Depending on the condition, it is probably worth around $10-$15. I'm sure SGC would grade them, but none have yet been graded as far as I know. The grading fees would cost as much as most of the cards are worth. A few of the cards that feature future Major Leaguers might be worth grading, though, including the key card in the set, Conrado Marrero's rookie card.<br /><br />I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any further questions. <br /><br />-Ryan

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Posted By: <b>Chad</b><p>I learned a lot myself from Ryan's post. <br /><br />--Chad

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Posted By: <b>Jim</b><p>Wonderful info! Thanks!<br /><br /><br />My card would be nice if not for the tear and album glue. It displays well, just has a half inch tear across the bottom. I've never seen them offered anywhere and for $20 I probably paid too much but its a unique piece that I had to have. It goes with my only other piece of Cuban memoribilia, a figurine of the Habana Leones that I bought cheap at an antique store. Its the same one pictured on the Cubanball site...Here's a photo.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.cubanball.com/Images/Teams/Habana1.JPG">