Treasure hidden in plain sight!

[frankhardy]

First of all, I need to give a little bit of background. For those that don't know, I am mainly a St Louis Cardinals collector. My Cardinals team sets are the main part of my collection. As an secondary part of my Cardinals collection, I collect Cardinals autographs on regular Topps cards. I am not talking about modern signed cards that you get out of packs, but the real thing... "on card" signatures on regular Topps cards....no reprints either. I have a thread where you can view all of my signed Cardinals cards. Here is the link.

https://forums.collectors.com/discus...al-to-1-178/p1

Now, back to my non-signed team sets. My team sets are fairly extensive. I have 23 albums full of team sets from 1948 to present. I started out in 2002 just wanting to get all of the main Topps sets. I quickly branched out to Bowman, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, etc for modern cards, and Post, Jello, Kellogg's, Exhibits, Red Man, Hostess, etc for vintage.

Then, I started the really hard part.....Topps Test Issues and miscellaneous inserts. Some are very easy like 1969 Topps Deckle Edge and 1965 Topps Embossed. Some are moderately difficult like 1974 Topps Deckle Edge and 1969 Topps 4-in-1. Then, some are very, very difficult like 1967 and 1968 Topps Discs, 1970 and 1972 Topps Candy Lids, 1968 Topps Plaks, etc. Then, some are almost impossible like 1955 Topps Hocus Focus, 1998 Topps Sportzcubz (which I have been able to accomplish). Then again, some ARE impossible like 1961 Topps Dice Game (which I don't have and don't ever foresee having).

That is the background. Now the reason for this thread....

A couple of months ago, I began to go after regular Topps cards that have variations. I have kept up with the modern gimmick variations like the SP and SSP photo variations that Topps have done over the past few years. But I decided to go back and try to get all of them back to 1952. Since I have a resource from an expert Cardinals collector (thanks, Randy!), I knew every thing I was going after. So far, I am update (I think) back to 1960.

One of the most expensive variations that I needed to get for my Cardinals team sets was a 1967 Topps Ed Spiezio that has the "pie" missing at the top. It is listed in the SCD Catalog. I began to look at those on Ebay, and even though it only books for $75 in the SCD, they are going anywhere from $300 to $700....OUCH! So, I just decided to be on the lookout for one and be patient. So one day recently I was going through my autograph collection and I noticed something that made my heart skip a beat! I thought to my self...."Am I seeing things?"

When I saw my autographed 1967 Topps Spiezio, I thought...."I must have this thing wrong....It must be the other one that is rare...not this one." But sure enough, I discovered that my autographed Ed Spiezio is the rare variation missing the "pie". So, I immediately began searching for a signed replacement for my autograph collection. After searching for about a month, I now have one. I paid $21 for it. Now, even though it is autographed, I can put my rare variation in my Cardinals team set collection, and the common card in the autograph collection.

Here they are side by side. The one on the left is worth about $20. The one on the right is worth about $300 to $500 (if you don't deduct for the signature).