1952 Christmas Rack Pack with Mantle
 

I know all about these Christmas rack packs but have never seen a 52 Christmas Rack Pack with Mantle showing. Ebay seller is reputable but had this up last week and auction ended at $20K . Next day its back up for $24K Rack pack looks authentic down to the staples. Concerned about seal on bottom and fact that Mantle is on bottom of hanging pack instead of middle or top. Thoughts ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-TOPPS-C...53.m1438.l2649

Seems too good to be true. I’ve never seen 52’s before either but I’ve never got into the Xmas packs.

Can you please educate me about these? Also why would someone sell this on eBay vs an auction house, if it was authentic?

PSA and SGC will not grade these rack packs. I tried to ask the seller a few questions but he banned me from asking questions or bidding. He had a 7 day return policy on other ad but current ad has ZERO return policy. Seems rather stupid if you return an untouched pack.

He sold 2 other 52 Christmas rack packs from same consignor which buyers are pleased with.

Is this the same guy? I've asked similar questions on here about these rack packs and was informed by some very knowledgeable collectors that these are fakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya3m0P4TbN8

Definitely stay away from these. They are too easily fabricated.

Big fan of Mantle and Lahmajoon !!

That mantle is 100% fake, colour is off

So that guy is hilarious - Claims to "Love" 52 Topps but doesnt seem to have a clue on some the player names?

+lots

I was following this listing all last week. I came across it when it was an auction with an opening bid of $3,500 and no bids. I exchanged a few messages with the seller and he answered all my questions with no problem, but it started sounding like a scam when he said he had the pack on consignment from an "elderly gentleman" and he explained his "7 day return policy." I was already skeptical knowing that these Christmas rack packs are commonly tampered with and once I received confirmation that the Mantle is 100% fake, I definitely wasn't going to bid, but kept watching. The seller then jacked up the opening bid to $15,000 and I saw it "sold" for $20,000. So now it's relisted for even more? Total scam.

How did you confirm that the Mantle card was fake ? I loved his 5% or 10% "restocking charge"
Give me a break !!

This is the same seller that is selling 1986 Fleer basketball packs graded by Atlas Grading Company for $350-400.
James

It's a very appealing pack specially with the Mickey Mantle that mantle Definitely looks trimmed hopefully it's real.

If it is returned, he needs to put it back into his kids Christmas Stocking...

"I tried to ask the seller a few questions but he banned me from asking questions or bidding."


Banned for asking questions? That's like putting up a bat signal saying "this is fake".

I have heard these are/were repacks. I would think it unlikely there would be both white and gray backs. It seems way too good to be true.

He banned me to because I asked a question about the bottom of the package. Seller is a total AH

Great way to build a customer base!

Not this guy, but I was threatened with harassment charges for telling a guy he needed bigger pictures of his posted cards. It was easy to see he wasn't cropping them, which, of course, made them harder to see. I tried explaining to him how to go about it, but quickly realized he was intentionally doing it on purpose in order to hide the defects.
It takes all kinds, and all kinds walk among us everyday, unfortunately! :(

interesting strategy
 

Unknowing buyer would have to open pack to send in and find out card is a fake. If they bought it thinking it was real, they would likely never open it and find out:eek:

I wrote the seller last night asking him some less than desirable questions about these packs and cards but received no reply as of yet.

As far as I know, I am not blocked/banned, but I will say I am disappointed to see he doesn't ship to Canada. :D

Yea ive heard the real Christmas packs were put together a few years after the original release by a company other than Topps. But there are so many fakes out there it's best to stay away.

Try and ask him another question. My guess is you have been BLOCKED
Let me know

"Message sent" so I am not blocked yet. I just finished asking him if he had any reply/answers to my questions.

Seller
 

The rack with the bad Mantle has been bouncing around, someone attempted to sell to my friend who owns Mt. Penn Sportscards in Pa. Please avoid the fantasy Christmas packs.

If he thought Mantle was real, he would be better off opening pack and getting it graded.

4 user ID's in 4 years.. newest one not even a month old...

That was me. I came across the auction and forwarded it to Tony at Mt. Penn Sports Cards, who I have known for several years now, to get his thoughts on the pack, not to try and sell it to him. He sent the pictures to either you or your son and someone else unrelated to you guys, and you all quickly told Tony that the Mantle was 100% fake and that is when I decided I was not going to bid... and then the starting price went up to $15K anyway. Just wanted to clarify that no one was trying to sell the pack to Mt. Penn Sports Cards and this pack really has not been bouncing around, it was just me asking Tony what he thought and he deferred to you :).

Nice pick up. Never bothered to check that. I guess that says a lot

just for the record
 

I am the son. My dad is not completely ignorant about cards but he would ask me what i thought. thanks for clarifying, Tony was a little vague on the text he sent me.

Looks like Vickey must have a stack of fake 52 Mantle's laying around her place in Harford CT....I believe she is the same seller offering this fine fake specimen.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-TOPPS-M...p2047675.l2557



http://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=245231

I think Mark Murphy was the first, or one of the first to sell these, and advertised them in SCD. He said they were restocked Topps cards repackaged by a 3d party and sold in retail stores. But he did not or could not name the retail stores or the 3d party packager, and the dates that the packaging supposedly took place have varied ( 60s, 70s, 80s).

There has also been disputes about which Topps issues were initially involved. I think Murphy originally sold 54-63. Later, earlier and subsequent years appeared. Even if his story is true, there is no doubt someone else is continuing the process.

Some people claim to be able to tell the "originals" from the later productions looking at staples and the configurations of the packaging. The folks claiming this are usually selling them.

Here is some correspondence I had with Murphy and his partner about them

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...psf6ae3a65.jpg

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...psc0602a73.jpg

Why on earth are ANY of you even remotely entertaining the idea that this eBay pack is real?

The Murphy find is really well documented esp on CU and can be found easily with a google search.

But any Xmas pacs on eBay are 100% fake. No point in checking packaging, staples, anything. The research has been done and all of its fake.

Wow. Thanks, close call. Saved by the bell. :)

I have no interest in these but my Google search suggests that there is still some difference in opinion as to whether some of these actually contain some legitimate cards. This is from an interview Rich Mueller did a few years back. Not encouraging people to buy these, but I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as you suggest. I confess I didn't spend hours researching this, but this is what I quickly found from a legitimate informed publication.

Explain the “Christmas rack packs”—where did they come from, are any of them legitimate and what’s usually inside?


Another tough subject! These Christmas racks were not produced by Topps. That is first and foremost. All of these Christmas racks are not issued by Topps in any way in any type of Topps closeout. They have been produced by a third party and then retailed in stores. Most likely in dime stores around the country in the 60’s and 70’s.


The cards are usually in EX to EX-MT condition at best. That leads me to believe that Topps did not even supply the cards for these! Had Topps supplied the cards, they would still most likely have been a little bit cleaner and sharper than the cards that are in these packs. I also see Christmas racks now that are being produced today.

Most advanced pack collectors will tell you that these packs are not legitimate items since Topps didn’t produce them. I will never authenticate one as being real for this same reason.

However–this is not to say that the racks have no value. The cards in the packs are still legitimate Topps cards. I have seen many racks with many major stars right on top. If a Christmas rack has a Sandy Koufax RC showing on top in EX-MT condition, well then, it still obviously is worth whatever that card is worth to you! A 1962 Topps Christmas rack may have zero value as a legit, Topps issued unopened rack pack, but still holds some value for the cards it is holding within.

It is funny how collectors keep going to the stinky well. Nobody is going to give good deals on rack packs value wise. Otherwise they would of just broken them up.

I can declare right now that i am taking random 1952 cards and making 'rack packs' and i can put in a mid grade andy pafko on the front in full view and a mid grade high number in full view and the rest commons that are in view.

Then i can declare i need funds for medication or taxes or whatever and there are 'mystery 1952 cards' inside. (they could be low number or high numbers or just regular commons but no mantle of course)... and 100% real or money back

and magically people will pay more than what a mid grade pafko and the mid grade high number would go for plus the 5-10$ a standard mid grade common would go for in the bidding and i just made money.. will be a sucker every time.

of course when someone buys it..they may re-sell it and give some additional story and say they were packed in the 70s when high numbers were not that sought after etc so it could have more them as well...plus it does have a Pafko..so who knows what other great cards are there? Maybe theres a baritrome in there now?

There would also be many net54 threads about whether its a good buy from that new seller....

Steve-- as noted above I tried to delve into these some to see if there was notable difference in what one could find in the "original" Murphy pack "find" and the current ongoing productions. Some folks say you tell the originals by staple or packaging type, but usually those are folks selling them.

I think the origin of these is an interesting hobby story but I have never been able to confirm that the originals were actually packaged back in the 60s and 70s as some claim ( which would make it more likely unseen cards might have some values, albeit in non mint condition) . But they showed up in 2001, where were they before that ? Murphy said he bought them through a 3d party he would not name, that they were repackaged by a 3d party he would not or could not name, and sold at retail at stores no one can recall.

If someone has first hand knowledge of these actually being sold in retail stores back in the day, I would love to hear about it. My interest in them is not about value but their actual origin

I remember buying some Xmas packs that look like the ones in this thread back in the late 80's, can't remember exact year. I also can't remember what year cards they held. I do remember buying them at Kmart. About a year ago I found one of those old empty Xmas packs that still had the Kmart price sticker on it. Unfortunately I burned it along with over 100K junk era cards.

Thanks Ben. ...for burning the evidence :)

Do you remember if it was late or early 80s and what city ?

I recall going to the Kmart in Peoria, Illinois in the summer, in the late 70's I would assume, and they had a big table by the checkouts with some sort of packaging similar to these Christmas packs of all sorts of Topps cards. I bought a handful for probably 25 cents or something, and opened them. Most were 75 Topps, I got a Gibson record breaker, and they also contained some football cards and non sports cards.

We had those here in the late 80's but they did not have the Xmas packaging. They did have them on tables lined up right before you went through the check out lanes. When they did not have tons of them for sale there was one display in the check out isle beside the customer service desk.

Well someone bought it from this miserable AH of a seller. No wonder he's changed his Ebay handle 4 times

An offer was accepted at $15,200.......the Rizzuto and Spahn are likely as fake as the Mantle. If the other 9 cards are legit, it works out to be $1688.88 per common.

So is the consensus that even the Mark Murphy ones are not legit either?

Tim-- if by legit you mean the Murphy packs were put together in the 60s, 70s or even early 80s by someone who then tried to sell them in retail stores at Christmas time in some unspecified time frame, there is no hard or conclusive evidence that I know of to confirm that. Nor is it clear whether whoever is churning them out today is different from the original source. But there are some, usually people claiming to sell or resell the Murphy "originals", that claim the older packs are more likely to be "legit" in that they are more likely to contain star cards in the middle because of being packaged at a time the cards were less valuable. But no one claims they were packaged by Topps and all seem to agree the cards are second hand returns or handled stock in Ex condition at best.

There are sellers who claim that by examining the staples and configuration of the packaging you can tell the old from the new packs. That maybe true but I am not CSI enough to verify that.

For $24k, he should walk the card up to Canada!

I agree! :D

Searching this site again, I seen some more info on these rack packs.
http://www.1952toppsbaseballcards.co...ckPackPage.htm

Anyone know who Robert Haimer is?

The scary part about this all is the buyer isn't going to learn it's fake, if ever, until he opens the package and sends in the Mantle for grading, at which point good luck returning it.

assuming money changed hands..

A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place. I'm not excusing the fraudster but there has to be an element of accountability on the part of the buyer. This is the eBay equivalent of an email from a Nigerian prince. Before plunking down that kind of money I'd do my homework because a quick search online would establish what a scam this is likely to be.