Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Klein
I'm sure there is a reason for the "scarcity" of those 7 cards since that goes way back. But there is one thing I can agree with 100 percent based on that sheet and based on personal knowledge. The Mantle card is ridiculously easy on all levels in that set.
Rich
|
In the mid-1970s I broke about 8 cases of 1964 Topps Giants. I sold complete sets for $2.00, and later, $2.40, through classified ads in SCD for a couple years. I got them from a guy named Merv Williams, whom I believe had only one leg, and for some reason I think he may have lived in Mountain View, CA, but I might be confusing that location with someone else.
Merv had a bunch of old unopened stuff. My buddy Carson Ritchey once told me of a time he visited Merv, and they'd walk through stacks of unopened stuff, and Carson would pick up a box at random, and it would be 1966 Topps high number vending, or some other treasure. I had always wanted to visit Merv just to see what all he had.
Anyway, the cases I got from Merv were similar to Topps "cut" cases from the 1980s - a bunch of cards packed into one big box, with no smaller packaging. Just bulk cards. The cases of 1964 Giants had about 4,400 cards each. Every one of them had about half as many of the 7 short prints as the rest of the cards, and Mantle was the most plentiful.
Because of the short print problem, I also offered 50 different cards for $1.00 (plus 40 cents postage,) and eventually, I sold some lots of 1,000 assorted cards. There were other cards that seemed more plentiful, like Kaline, Bailey, Radatz, Billy Williams, and a few others, while several were less common but not scarce, like Ellsworth, Hinton, Romano, and Ford. So when I sold my leftovers in those 1,000 card lots, the distribution was quite poor, something like 100 Mantles and 50 each of 18 other cards.
I did find a guy through SCD who would sell me extra short prints so I could fill out more sets, and that worked great at first, but as he bumped his prices, the economics made that situation less attractive, and eventually Merv ran out of cases.
Anyway, I can attest with absolute certainty that the 8 cases (35,000 cards in unopened cases) definitely had a short print situation going on. Whether that situation existed throughout the entire run, I have no idea.