Kellogg's vs Topps
 

I have been doing a lot of research in old issues of The Trader Speaks (currently looking at 1973 issues) and one thing that really jumps out at me is how popular the Kellogg's sets were compared to Topps issues of the same vintage. 1971 Kellogg's was going for as much as $65 where 71 Topps could be had for $15. In 1972 it's about $25 vs $13.

Also of note, May 1973 issue mentions Xograph (who also made Topps 3D in 1968) lost their contract to Visual Panographics, resulting in no 3D issue that year.

The 1970 set was available everywhere for around $5 back then. The overstock was available from toy stores and certain dealers. In 1971 collectors faced having to empty cereal boxes at a rapid pace to complete the Kelloggs set. Then in 1972 we initially assumed that the cards would be available only in boxes. Dealers had complete sets by Summer, so the direct set offer must have kicked in then. I remember opening and tossing a lot of bad cereals earlier that year.

Could the higher prices for Kellogg's sets have more to due to with a significantly lower supply than Topps sets versus actually being more popular(higher demand) than Topps sets at the time?

The 1971 Kelloggs was a high demand set back then, and the only Kelloggs issue that didn't have a mail-in offer for the complete set. As Howie mentioned, the ONLY way to get them was to buy the cereal that year. I remember buying a complete set from Chicago dealer Bob Solon for $75 that year, that was HUGE money for a 12 year old. I worked 40 hours at $2 an hour as a groundskeeper to pay for that set:)

It absolutely was a matter of supply. One could buy complete Topps sets from Stan Martucci, Fritsch, Yeko, Card Collectors Company but no over supply of Kelloggs cards leaked to dealers. Perhaps Kelloggs learned a lesson from the prior year.

Randy, I bought 1972 and 1973 sets from Bob Solon. I believe I got a partial refund once the 72 complete set direct offer came out.

It's not just the pricing or supply, there were numerous articles on the Kellogg's sets in prior issues. I think the novelty of 3D was quite appealing in the early 70's.

As an aside, complete sets of 1973 Topps were being advertised as early as the May issue, so they were available from the beginning of the season.

We kids were mesmerized by the 3-D cards. Absolutely mesmerized!!!! As someone has said, though, the problem was you'd have to go through an entire box of cereal just to get a single card, while you could easily hit the stationery store and buy countless packs of Topps. At the end of summer most of us had a complete or near-complete set of Topps, but sadly only a handful of Kellogg's cards.

Howie, Bob Solon is a great name from the past. I had several dealings with him in the early 1970s. He had all those great oddball complete sets. I dealt with Fritsch and Martucci as well. Those were the days.

Yes. As an elementary school student, trading cards with friends was what we did. I had to give up quite a bit to get a 72 Kelloggs Willie Mays card, (although I no longer remember how much) since there just were not many out there, and the whole 3-D thing was quite a novelty at the time.

Kellogg's 3-D cards were just highly prized.

Cereal cost about 40 cents back then. It would have cost $30 just to get 75 cards. Of course, that would not yield a complete set. By the time collectors realized that there would be no direct offer it would have taken a lot of expensive scrambling for cereal. The shift over to the Football 3D set also curtailed supply. That May 73 The Trader Speaks issue features a Stan Martucci ad offering a 1970 Kelloggs set for $8 but no 1971 Kelloggs set. This was a genuinely tough set to complete!

I hate to open that can of worms, but NY dealer Barry Allen's ad on page 26 shows that the 1973 Topps set was available for only $7 with shipping one series at a time! At the time of the May TTS issue only two series were available.

There is a classified on page 30 offering the full 1973 Topps set in the May issue.

I may change the title of this thread to as the worm turns LOL.....

Forget the cards, I've been picking up the box panels. Got these in Cleveland over the summer:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ack%20full.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ith%20Mays.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ack%20part.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...box%20back.jpg

Love those 1970 box panels! Great memories! I can still remember getting three (THREE!!!) cards in one box in 1970, and two of them were from my favorite team (Seaver and Agee)! Days didn't get much better than that for the 5 year old version of me!

Somewhere in the great mass, my mom and I kept lots of empty Kelloggs boxes, but I don't think we started doing that until 1972 or 1973. Will have to dig those out one of these days!

For some reason, as a kid in 1973, I thought we had heard that the "3-D machines" were broken, which is why the 1973 cards were 2-D. The changing vendor seems a more likely explanation.

Anybody know if the 1972 Kelloggs All Time greats were sold as a full set as well? I remember having to eat Kelloggs Danish Go Rounds to get those - I do remember those things had a LOT of sugar in them!

Adam - Those box panels are very cool.

I've looked for years to see if Lou Brock was on one, I don't think he is.

I saw Gibson on the top one from 1970 though.

I don't know of a Brock panel card but then I've never looked.

Danish Go Rounds, yum! Like a Pop Tart on steroids. I have a partial from that issue. The boxes are tough!

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...box%20back.JPG

Yes - that was probably before PED testing on toaster pastries! In my memory, they were big and very thick - I am wondering how they fit in a toaster! Had to have been like 4 to a box?

I remember purchasing the Kellogg's all time greats as a complete set - I seem to recall having to send in some box tops and a small fee for it. And if memory serves, they came in a perforated sheet (or 2).

Dave, Brock is on the back of 1978 Kelloggs boxes. I'll try to post a pic later.

Brock is also on the 1977 boxes.

I love the Kellogg 3D cards and boxes. I collected them during the entire run.

I think the hobby is wrong on some of the mail-in information that has circulated for years. I think 1973 was the first year for the mail-in offer. I challenge anyone to show a box from 1970 or 1972 with a mail-in offer. For 1970 and 1972, I think the only reason they are more common than 1971 is that card dealers were able to get supplies of those two sets from Kelloggs and were not able to get them for 1971.

Also, if my memory is correct, I think in 1981 and 1982 you could only mail in for complete sets, I don't think the cards were in boxes those years. They were back in boxes for the last year of 1983.

http://www.moviecard.com/aapics/83bottom-50percent.jpg

Something that invariably needs to be brought up whenever Kellogg's cards are discussed is the inevitable cracking. What a downer it was when you grabbed your 3-D cards from years past and saw they all (or many) were starting to crack all over the place. Even though we loved those cards, that is definitely one of the reasons why they were considered of secondary importance, for lack of a better term, to my friends and me. We knew that eventually all our Kellogg's cards would curl up, dry out and be all crackly. I grew up in New York (where it's hot and humid in summer, cold and dry in winter), but I've always assumed this phenomenon happened everywhere. Am I wrong? Did other climates across the country treat these cards more humanely?

And on a side note, what happens when you get one of those suckers graded (say, a PSA 8) and over time it starts cracking inside the slab? This is a kind of 'Schrödinger's Cat' type of thought experiment. It has already been graded out as an 8 within its plastic home…but is it still truly an 8?? Weird.

3D degradation
 

I have a set of the 68 Topps 3Ds, and their 2011 effort. All are ungraded and so far no noticeable deterioration on my 68s. It would be areal bummer to have a bunch of the 68s go bad considering the original cost of acquiring them.

Any steps that can prevent or slow down the deterioration of 3d cards ?

At one time you could buy 3D disposable cameras. I took a bunch of family photos using them in the late 80s and 90s and they are all deteriorating now

I have a complete set of 1970 Kellogg's that I have kept in Ultra Pro 9 pocket pages for many years and they have held up fine...

For Dave: 1977 and 1978 Kelloggs Brocks.

On further review, that 1977 scan is Bake McBride. It was from a very small photo copy from Ebay. Randy

I've never seen the box with Brock on it ever in years of ebay searches.

collector value to box cutouts?
 

Just wondering if there is any collector value to the 3D card "pictures" that are displayed on the box as advertising. Has anyone seen them cut out and for sale, separate from the actual 3D cards?

The '79s in particular look way nicer than the actual 3D cards themselves.

1971 and 72 box cards recently went for $15 to $25 on Ebay.

Hi Dave, the Brock box that I scanned for you is an un-assembled box with no expiration date on it. I can't remember where I got it. I suppose its possible that it was un-issued. I would think that you would have seen another after years of searching. Randy

Someone was kind enough to find one for me on Ebay, I've seen it before, it has Reggie Jackson on the front, and is fairly common.

So I will add that to the collection soon.

I collect the box cards. They are much tougher to find than the regular issues.

Plus they won't curl up and crack!

Finally found where I had my Kelloggs boxes stored. (Special thanks to my mom, who collected with me, and donated the closet/bedroom/basement space and encouraged me to keep even some of the junky boxes!) These are the mid 70s boxes I had (74-78, I think) - bad news (or good news?) David - looks like you have two more Brock boxes to chase down! Going through these, it really reminded me how SICK I was of eating Frosted Flakes back then. I am fairly certain that I have not eaten one more Frosted Flake since the last box that had a card in it.

A word of thanks to Marty and Randy for taking the time and trouble digging out and loading up some images for us of the Kellogg's cereal boxes with their tantalizing 3-D baseball card promotions. After the passage of 30-40 years, it's nice to see them again in all their charming innocence and eye appealing graphics. Simply beautiful display pieces! Again, thank you.:D ---Brian Powell

What accounts for the relative scarcity of the 1975 Kellogg's issue?

That too...

I believe the 1975 Kellogg Set is probably the 2nd hardest set to complete (especially in top condition - no cracks). A lot less of these for sale. The 1975 set for some reason cracks very easily. I looked for a long time to find Uncracked cards. When I finally completed the set, I check on it a year later in my basement and all the cards were cracked. Must have been made different that year.

I've been looking at a run of old TTS mags and am struck by the complete absence of ads for the 1975 Kelloggs set throughout the 1975 issues. Prior Kelloggs sets, eve 1971, were always advertised at some point in their current year in TTS by multiple dealers. Not so with 1975.

The 1974 set brings back SO many memories. My allowance was 25 cents a week back then (I was 8, turning 9 in the summer), so Topps cards at 15 cents a pack were slow in coming. The only way I could afford anything was to go through the local neighborhoods and pick up returnable bottles and bring them in to the convenience store and use that money for cards. But, the Kellogg's cards... well, that was something different altogether. I ate about 12-15 boxes of cereal that summer, but I also had people from my church saving cards for me. Every Sunday morning I could count on 2-3 cards being handed to me by some nice lady or teenaged girl. I don't think I even came close to completing the set that summer, but the 74's will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason.

Now that would be one for my Garvey thread. I don't think i have seen that box that features his card before. Now i need to track one down…

Good luck to me, since I have never seen it until now!!

QUOTE=laughlinfan;1343704]Finally found where I had my Kelloggs boxes stored. (Special thanks to my mom, who collected with me, and donated the closet/bedroom/basement space and encouraged me to keep even some of the junky boxes!) These are the mid 70s boxes I had (74-78, I think) - bad news (or good news?) David - looks like you have two more Brock boxes to chase down! Going through these, it really reminded me how SICK I was of eating Frosted Flakes back then. I am fairly certain that I have not eaten one more Frosted Flake since the last box that had a card in it.[/QUOTE]

The only year also available in packs besides inside the box

Another retail pack, plus an unopened pack

1975 Scarcity
 

For those interested in the 1975 Kellogg scarcity, I have an interesting recollection. I bought the sets directly from Kellogg's in those years from their mail-in offers and I sent for the 1976 set very early in 1976, right after they started printing the mail-in offers on the boxes. To my surprise, I received a 1975 set in the mail, so I still have two of those sets somewhere. So Kellogg's definitely didn't run out of their mail-in supplies early for 1975. I never got around to sending for another 1976 set, so I had to buy that set from a dealer about 10 years later.

There is always some sort of market for that kind of thing, albeit a small one in some cases. I suppose it depends on how unique and hard to find an item is and if it has been accepted as a collectible by the masses.

For my collection, I would take a full box, panel or a single card cut from the box and ideally all three for a complete run. I have a 1980 Garvey card cut from a box as well as a panel (no full box that I can remember), but I guess I didn't scan it, so I don't have a picture handy.

If anyone has it I would like to see a full panel from the Danish Go-Rounds. I have a hacked partial.

Here you go

http://4192cards.com/misc/1972 Kello...x Greats 1.JPG
http://4192cards.com/misc/1972 Kello...x Greats 2.JPG

Yup, that's it. Thanks.

Not sure what brought this to mind, but it fits in with a question in this thread. Last year I sold a bunch of Kelloggs cards in PSA 10 slabs on ebay. When I went to sell them, one of them had an enormous crack in it. I didn't hide it in my listing. I made sure that the buyer was aware.

What I want to know is this: Is this a big problem? Does this happen a lot? I ask because I am considering grabbing a few cards, and I don't want to shell out $50 for a card that in three months is worthless. Of the 37 I sold, only one was cracked. But it still concerns me. Any thoughts?

Yes. The 3D cards have always had a problem with cracking. I have tried storing them in pages, hoping to keep them from curling. After several cracked I decided to just let them curl.