So glad to have found this one...only 2 have ever been graded across PSA, SGC or Beckett.

Here are two more toughies from my Tom Seaver collection. These are apparently from signings Seaver did at a car dealership just before and after his trade to the Reds. (The two cards are the same size even though the scans are different sizes).

1960 Post Cereal Killebrew hand cut from Grape Nuts.

Killer's total graded pop is 15 w/ no autos. Given the general scarcity, this may be the only autographed one. But who really knows. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...2e57c45bf1.jpg

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Here’s another fun one. 1958 Hires Root Beer Test set with tab for my man Mays. Pop 3. Picked this one up at auction a few years ago, and luckily the competition decided to bounce before bidding it up too high, as I was expecting to pay a multiple of where it landed.

Another ….

Maybe I should start a posting contest with Raulus - rare Mays cards vs. rare Seaver cards. I suspect Mays has more. Anyhow, here are all three candy lids of Seaver.

I guess it’s time to respond with my own candy lids. I will note that the 73 lids are pushing the limits on rare, although some around here argue that any issue that has more than about 3 copies known doesn’t qualify as rare. For Mays, the 72 is pop 7, and the 73 is pop 59.

I guess Seaver takes this round, with a 3rd candy lid.

I agree the 1973 candy lids aren't really scarce. I just wanted to include the complete run of candy lids.

Here are a couple more Seavers from the Willie Mays era -- a 1968 Topps unissued proof of Seaver pitching left-handed (missing a color pass), and a watch and photo/card that I believe are also from 1968.

That Mays with tab is a very special card

Very few of these floating around:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...aughan%201.jpg

1967 Seaver team issue:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0Mets%20TI.jpg

1969 Ryan team issue:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...0Mets%20TI.JPG

1946 Trading Post premiums:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...t%20Musial.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20DiMaggio.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Feller_1.jpg

1960 Los Angeles Examiner, issued for one day:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...r%20Koufax.jpg

A few 1962 Salada coins
 

Dick Williams name on right

Mantle in an unopened cello strip and close up of just the Mantle

Here are a couple more Seavers -- 1982 Rawlings and 1985 Chicago Renaissance Society. The Rawlings is an actual card with stats on back, not the more commonly seen clothing hang tag.

Since I already shared the 59 Bazooka complete box, it’s time for 1960. This time, pop 1, although I suppose you could argue I’m a flap short of a truly complete box. Picked this one up raw on eBay for a screaming deal a few years ago.

Youze guys got some deep benches of postwar rarities. I haven't even heard of half the cards you're posting.

Spah-key!

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...s%20Lyle_1.jpg

I've shown these before, but again can't hurt.
76 Hostess, probably some sort of proofs. Yellow and green instead of red and blue.The group has/had a bunch of reversed negatives, and more coarsely screened pictures, and a couple with numbers over 150.
I swapped a 74 Mc Covey washington national for a small stack of them, the stupidly swapped about half of them for another McCovey.

I haven't seen any others since then, which was probably around 1980 or 81. The Luzinski showed up in a Halls auction many years later, no suprise since thats who I traded them to.

I should scan the rest of them.
https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=10144https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=10145

1960 OPC tattoos for Mays. PSA has it down as pop 2.

I could be wrong, but I think the only difference between this and the more common Topps version is the line that identifies the print location.

One of the 3 different '60 Fleer #80, this one the incrementally easier of the 3, Grove/Martin. Uncancelled and oversized.

https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...ons/80.tif.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...80back.tif.jpg

'60 Topps point of purchase display, allegedly only 4 in existence, at least until someone uncovers a stack in grampas basement
https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...ge/60Topps.jpg

Salesman samples in general are pretty scarce, but I found '53 and '56 Topps to be the toughest

https://photos.imageevent.com/griffi...an-Samples.jpg


Thanks for starting the thread Peter, some good stuff on here!

Always enjoy seeing your salesman samples Anthony. Almost as much as your pack display

I have only these 2 salesman samples. I'm always looking for any of these that include either Pete Runnels or Mickey Vernon.

….

Or this one….

Or..

…

Or

..

Lummis

‘59 Armour Meats

Mark - love the minor leaguers!

Here are a couple of Seaver rarities from better known sets -- the 1973 Topps comic and 1973 Topps pinup.

Outstanding! I basically gave up on my Topps "Seaver as a Met" collection as completion was virtually impossible thanks to those two.

Byron "By" Speece, a submarine pitcher, began his pro career in the minors in 1922 at age 25 and finished his career with the Seattle Rainiers in 1945 at age 48! I collect his cards because he pitched for the 1924 WS Champion Washington Senators, his only year with this team. After the 1924 season, Clark Griffith shrewdly traded Speece and another "no-name" player to Cleveland for Stan Coveleski who greatly helped the Senators win the 1925 AL pennant. He pitched for Cleveland in 1925 and very briefly in 1926 and for the Phillies in 1930. All of the rest of his years were spent in the minors.

Try to suspend your amazement, but this time it's not Mays.

53/54 Briggs Meats Grasso. Today PSA shows Pop 1, but that's because they haven't updated for this one yet, with the grade just posting today.

Fun fact: grasso means "fat" in Italian. As the saying goes in Rome, "after a fat pope comes a skinny one", although Newton was never the Bishop of Rome.

Here are some hard-to-find items from my Johnny Bench collection.

Time for another Mays Bazooka box. This time from 1961, although it’s missing the tabs, so woefully short of a truly complete box. PSA pop=1.

1964 Orioles Martin Family Night.

A personal favorite, 1964 boy scouts world champion cardinals. I love the idea of cards gives out as an incentive to join the boy scouts. Especially only scouts in the St. Louis area. Makes for a super rare type card 60 years later.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...3b9591f996.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...734f7d29ec.jpg

67 Bench is a grail.

Not sure how HTF this one is, but 65 Team Issue Carlton.

This is kind of a companion to Lucas' 1964 Boy Scouts card. It's a 1969 Boy Scouts card of Tom Seaver. I don't have a scan of the back, but it urges scouts to sign up their friends, just like Lucas' card. But it doesn't offer any reward. I guess the Boy Scouts got stingy by 1969, or maybe they were just more generous in St. Louis.

They should've added "You'll get nothing...and like it!!!" to the layout. :eek:

I should've mentioned the front, it says: To a world champion scout. Good luck. Red Schoendienst.

Each cardinal wrote their own sentence on the front

But you are still checking Larry :)

What am I checking for?

1970 topps super Johnny Bench square corner

Time for some Post complete panels. This one from 1961. Basically the complete backside of the cereal box. PSA has this one down as pop 5.

This Ryan premium is about 5 x 7 and tough as heck to find.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...KFS%20Ryan.jpg

All the Rodine HOF postcards and premiums are rare; if anyone has any others I'd love to see them and finish the checklist:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20HOF%204.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...e%20PC%203.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...remium%202.jpg

One of a trio of really tough 1951 Hallicrafters premiums (the others are Rosen and Lemon as singles):

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...osen-Lemon.jpg

This one is real interesting (well, to me). The first time I found one of these, I thought it was some sort of Exhibit proof. It has the same artwork and is not a reprint but oversized and on lighter stock.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...all%20card.jpg

Fast-forward several years and I find another, with a very enlightening twist:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20card%201.jpg

This one is post-marked in February 1948 from Brooklyn (where I guess Holmes lived), 2x signed and inscribed by Holmes. The ink on the front doesn't match the ink on the back. I am now thinking it is some sort of autograph request mail reply card that Holmes had ESCO manufacture for him.

Not truly rare in terms of the issue itself, but the 1954 All-Star photo pack Banks isn't particularly easy to find.

I have only seen a handful https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...550938f365.jpg

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Elston Howard
 

Here's a couple of Elston Howard items that are unusual, I think:

Time for the Canucks to get their 15 mins of glory.

This was inserted into boxes of sugar crisp cereal. Naturally, most of them were separated into individual cards. Pretty sure Fred helped me find this one.

1962 Post Canadian inserts complete sheet with my man Mays. PSA Pop 1.

Going with the 1962 Post complete panel today, with both Mays and Banks. PSA Pop 2.

And another 62 Post complete panel. This time with just 3 players, including Mays and Killebrew. PSA Pop 4.

I’ll skip over the remaining half dozen Post complete panels, as they get a bit tedious at times. Here is the 1964 Meadowgold complete panel. PSA Pop 8. They came in blue, green, and brown. I also have the blue, but not the brown. Instead of being featured on cereal boxes, this one came on milk cartons.

Sorry for this being a modern issue but these were available at Sam's Club as I got a couple of these, I never seen them in the grocery stores as 2 card panels. Here is a complete 8 card panel/box from Sam's Club

And here is the 1964 Meadowgold complete milk carton. It’s just a little too big to fit into the PSA jumbo slab, so we don’t have any official stats, but they definitely seem rare.

Here are some 1968 Kahns full strips.

1964 Sports Heroes stickers Mays. PSA Pop 3.

The individual sports heroes are hard to find, so I assume the complete sheets are even harder. These two with Mays, McCovey, and Cepeda, among others. Just a hair too big to fit into PSA’s jumbo holders, so no way to get an official pop count. Pretty sure Fred helped me find these.

1960 Darigold Farms #6 Curt Roberts Spokane Indians
 

Curtis B. "Curt" Roberts. Second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954-1956. First black player in Pittsburgh Pirates history. 128 hits and 1 home run over 3 MLB seasons. Also played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1947-1950.

PSA has graded only one Roberts and a total of five cards from this set:

George, your showing your scarce 1960 Darigold Farms card reminds me that these cards with the superfluous tab still attached are even scarcer.

Shouldn't the Darigold Farms cards without the tab be graded as "handcut" or "without tab"? How do the graders decide what sets to add these designations to? Or are they just ignorant of the Darigold Farms tabs and unable to detect a handcut edge?

Very cool, Val. Is that Hondo's earliest card? I believe PSA has also graded a Frank Howard, but I don't know whether the tab is still attached. My guess would be that PSA graded my card without realizing tabs were possible, but since there is nothing on the tab, I could also see them grading it without a tab as though it were a strip card. I'll leave the argument regarding how strip cards should be graded and labeled to others. I'm agnostic regarding the importance/necessity of noting "hand cut" on cards that were made to be hand cut.

Howard is in 1960 Topps.

Time for another bazooka box! 1965 this time. Mays is pop 1.

If I've shown this before, I apologize. When you show something this rare that you cut off the box yourself back in the day, it makes you feel pretty good. Of course we didn't think value back then, just another card for the collection.

Time for one last Bazooka box from my Mays collection. This time from 1968, although it’s missing the flaps on one side, so it’s a “complete box”.

PSA pop 4.

A trio…

1969 Globe Imports checkerboard back Mays. PSA pop 4.

Nice card unfortunately I have the common second series from a gumball machine in NJ

Yep. One of those situations where one variation is pretty common and the other is fairly rare.

1969 Nabisco Team Flakes complete sheet with my man Mays, along with Seaver, Rose, and Brock, among others. PSA has this one down as pop 4.

1959 armour coin - mickey vernon prototype
 

THIS IS ONE OF A KIND1959 Armour coin of Mickey Vernon in very dark yellow. Correct common version in pale yellow. Note the team is Senators on the dark coin and the back shows a space for pitching stats that are blank. The correct coin shows his team as Indianshis batting average as is correct since he was an infielder not a pitcher. The coin is believed to be a prototype developed to sell Armour on the idea of renewing the baseball coin giveaway, dormant since 1955. It should also be noted that dark yellow color has never been seen for any other 1959s NOR HAVE ANY OTHER PROTOTYPES EVER BEEN IDENTIFIED.
Attachment 664559

Attachment 664560

Some Tough Variations
 

A few tough variations

The Clemens has some defective partners

Monte Irvin showing in topps Red Back pack

Lummis Peanut butter
 

A card any card from this set has been on my wantlist for a long long time. I turned over a few hundred Sealtest stickers over the past 40 plus years looking for one. Happy to add one to my collection. And all I had to do was win an auction.
One of the Truly scarce postwar Baseball card Issues. Just like the thread title says.

2013 Upper Deck Infinite Rarest of all UD cards issued
 

This is 5 of the total of 33 Upper Deck Infinite cards PSA has Graded since they were issued 12 years ago. The set was 30 cards Basketball Football and Golf subjects. They were part of a credit card Upper Deck wanted to push. I got these by signing up for a card at the Philly show in valley forge. But I never used the card as it was too difficult to earn points for the card packs.
Well I was not the only one who didn't use the card. And because there were bank regulations around this issue they destroyed the leftovers. Easily the scarcest UD issue. There are 3 Jordans in the set with a total of 4 cards graded by PSA.
Because they are so rare no one collects them ..
Sounds like something Yogi would say.

I miss Steve too. Always looked forward to seeing what he had in his showcase, displayed on the back wall or under the table!