1955 Topps Cello Ripped Open
 

Didn't see this posted anywhere and thought I'd bring it to the big board.

https://forums.collectors.com/messag...VIEWTMP=Linear

very cool!

So much fun

That was fun.

Agree very cool. I'd get a lot of enjoyment from being the one to rip that open.

Holy crap! That guy scored big. There's no way I would have gotten that lucky.

That was an awesome rip. What did he originally pay for the cello pack?

$2030 according to the CU thread. What an incredible pack. That Clemente is beautiful!

I wonder if the consignor of that pack has seen that thread. Incredible!

This might be an apt moment to ask: How do people judge the legitimacy of packs offered for sale--ones that are not graded? Is it pure blind or do you put stock in auction house claims or what? What is track record? If this guy didn't pull a 2nd Mays and a Clemente wouldn't you have guessed that maybe pack tampered? I've always been tempted to take this plunge but never enough faith that getting legit pack. Willing to take chance on getting non-star cards but only if believe not tampered....

Goosebumps, wow!

Let's just say the consignor is a reliable source and is probably thrilled.

Wow
 

Thanks for the post. That was a lot of fun!!!

Nice ! Cool post but it was kinda funny how off centered they were and he was like it's improving hahahah

Really, really wish it had been on video; but fun all the same. I think the last thing I ripped was a box of 88 Donruss. :rolleyes:

this should definitely help the hammer on the next older unopened pack(s) that hit the block!

Nice! I ripped enough packs in my day to deduce, I probably shouldn't be ripping packs, unless I found myself caught right in the middle of Billy Ripken FF Fever. :D

do you think he did much better than $2000?

Probably a little, but not much. That Clemente is probably a 8 PD which is worth maybe $2000? The Mays an 8 OC, which is maybe worth $500?

Lots of low pop cards in there, if they had only been straight 8's all around!

There were two Mays.

An 8 PD Clemente would sell for much more than $2000. That's at least a $5000 card...maybe more.

So if this is all legit then Topps cello packs were a mixture of low numbers and high numbers in 55? Is there any other documented 55 cello rips? Also why wouldn't you take video opening a $1700 pack of cards?

I respectfully disagree. I think my guess was a best case scenario. What if there's a small surface wrinkle? Then it's a 5 PD. How much is it worth then?

I also agree with Dan, I'm a little skeptical of the whole thing. It's funny how every card was OC with the exception of the Clemente.

Even if the card were only graded a 7 PD, it would still probably reach $5000 but the corners look stronger than "NM." I was trying to be conservative in my estimate. The last two unqualified 8s to sell in auction realized over $35K and $44k. The Clemente rookie has risen considerably in value over the last two years as have many other key rc's from the 1950s.

I haven't opened any cellos from 1955 Topps but I have opened wax packs and the centering does indeed vary so yes, I would say that the Clemente could definitely be a legitimate card in that sequence.

No pink elephants in that room:rolleyes:

Edit: Or I should just say, I agree with SlideKellySlide, and i'll leave it at that.

Not sure I'm reading this right. Are you saying the pack had been opened before but that the real cards were replaced with 2 Mays cards and a Clemente RC?

Or that the guy who bought it didn't really get those cards and just pretended to?

Come on, would it really be the first time a CU member faked a pack rip?

https://forums.collectors.com/messag...rd1=jordan+rip

19 horribly off centered cards and 1 dead centered Clemente. It's a Christmas miracle.

Thanks for posting that CU link. It got threadjacked a couple of times but was still a $h!+storm all the way through

Wow! I see what you mean. And add to it the drama of the RC being the very last card!

I opened a 1955 topps cello pack maybe 25 years ago---it had 24 cards--20 cards were high numbered and 4 were low---the centering was very nice and it was loaded--I will not say what I got out of the pack because u wouldn't believe me---but my point is the cello pack was mixed---Don

I hate to be the cynic in the room, but we're expected to believe that he ripped open a '55 Topps cello pack, pulled out not one, but two Willie Mays cards, and then a Clemente rookie that's perfectly centered when every other card in the pack is at least 90/10 off center? :rolleyes:

If I had a '55 Topps cello pack to rip, you can bet your sweet bippy the rip would be recorded, and posted unedited. What, he can afford to drop $2k on a 60 year old baseball card pack, but he has no capability to record said rip? Really? A little later in the same thread, somebody mentions the same guy ripped a '79/'80 O-Pee-Che pack, and pulled out a Gretzky rookie. Either this guy has the greatest luck, or something is rotten in Denmark.

I once ripped a pack and pulled a Ruth. Unfortunately it was a pack of 1991 Conlon Collection.

Why does everything have to be rotten in DENMARK? Can't it be Sweden or Finland? And since those places are so cold, it's hard to believe stuff goes rotten very quickly anyway. Peru, I could see...............

The coinkidinks are amazing............

Ha

It's a Festivus miracle, for the rest of us. And for the airing of grievances:

I know the pack was legit because the consignor was legit. That said, I gotta call BS on the rip itself as presented. I believe the two Mays cards were in there because they were horribly OC the same as the other cards and they had the same print defect [fish eye] in his name at virtually the same place, which means there was bit of dirt on the transfer roller that was gradually moving across, so they were probably printed within a sheet or two of each other then sent to cutting and collating together. But the Clemente has different corner wear than the cards before and after it. If the rip was depicted sequentially, the Clemente was not in there between those two cards. If the rip was depicted out of sequence, perhaps to create suspense, then the whole thing is about as real as an episode of American Pickers.

As for the money, I think the winner would do just fine off the items as shown. Assuming the Clemente is not altered, I don't think anyone would realistically label that card as less than a vg-ex specimen. I'd call it ex or better, and if I wanted one of them, I'd pay a grand for a card with that kind of eye appeal, and I'm a skinflint. And with the two Mays cards and the commons I think the bidder will get back his money readily and then some.

Who knows...Ask Shakespeare..:)

Color me skeptic as well. It makes for a better story with monster cards in it.

I honestly hope it was real. No reason to root against a fellow hobbyist.

But it seems highly implausible that the Clemente was the last card. Wouldn't you have seen that through the cello? Can't imagine it would have sold for $2k if that was the case.

The Clemente was the next to last card.
James

Right, sorry to mislead. I should have said it was the last card where there was any suspense at all...i.e., the last card that didn't already show through the cello.

Nvmd, beat me to it.

Right, and that makes it even more unbelievable. It couldn't have been the last card, because we knew the last card before the pack was opened. By having the Clemente as the next to last card, he built up the drama to very end.

Well, I think there's writing on the back of the Clemente card, and the fact that the ripper shows the back scan makes me think it was his idea of an April Fool's joke to say he pulled it as part of the pack.

Good pick up that looks like someone printed a couple of letters on the back.

Imho...
 

I am not a card guy, have enough problems with autographs, but why would someone do this? Over sized ego??

I hope this does not open the floodgates of packs with "popped seals" showing up at auctions. I do not mean to cast doubt on this specific pack.

I've dealt with the ripper and would be shocked if I heard that it had been tampered with. Yes, it's true he pulled a Gretzky rookie (Topps) recently and received an 8.5 from PSA on it. It was a big hit and he shared it with the collecting community. He shared the '55 rip because, well it's a big rip. As for the "writing" on the back -- I'm a novice collector and can tell that that is NOT writing on the back. As for the rest of the cards, again a novice, but I remember busting tons of 1979 Hockey and the one card in the set that is notoriously OC is #161 Mike Bossy. Whenever I pulled a decently centered one the rest of the cards were garbage OC and miscut. In this case the Clemente is a notoriously OC card and, I'd assume, that in order to find one centered the cards cut around it would have to be butchered.

Here is the proof......
 

This is the exact same photo he posted as the back of the card that he got from that pack!!! That is funny! :)

It is pretty funny watching the "believers" hail the Holy Grail. Even funnier seeing the initials clearly written on the back to the right of "Throws Right"! :eek:


Peace, Mike

Attachment 213722

Yet here is an eBay auction with the SAME "writing"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1955-TOPPS-B...p2047675.l2557

This was also from the CU thread. The card is currently being offered on eBay and has the same exact marking or "initials" on the reverse of another '55 Clemente. That mark is from Topps, not from a collector.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1955-TOPPS-B...p2047675.l2557

I looked at a few and all the ones with the print defect on the front have that "writing" on the back.

I stand corrected. It's not writing. Apologies to the ripper.

I'm still......
 

not convinced. The Clemente being centered while every other card is way off, Clemente was the second to last card pulled for what I admit was quite the dramatic effect if staged. I'm a non believer. Prove me wrong. Let me see the video! :cool:

Peace, Mike

If the Clemente came from a single strip, I could possibly buy that theory. But, since it was from a sheet, I don't.

If that were true, that would mean other cards, either in the same row or column depending on the miscut, would be just as centered as the Clemente.

I'm not a member of CU so I can't ask myself, but why doesn't someone ask the "Ripper" if he recorded the opening, and if he did not record, why didn't he?

We got Clemente Truthers now....lol

this is funny

Hobby Happenings
 

With all the stuff happening in the hobby these days I guess it is natural there would be both a tendency to be happy for such a collector (and maybe a little envious), and also skeptical. We can be a cynical group at times. Sign of the times maybe :)

I guess I fall into the camp of--

"What does he have to gain by fabricating this?"

The conspiracy is way too involved to gain absolutely nothing.

+1

2 things to consider.

1) He would have had to find a previously unknown and centered Clemente with sharp corners in order to pull this off.

2) If he did already have a previously unknown and centered Clemente with sharp corners, are we saying that he decided that he must overpay for an unopened cello pack so that he could slide it in for a rip? Why?

All I want to know is why he didn't record himself opening the pack. Seems the logical thing to do in the era of naysayers. Did he record the Gretzky pack rip?

People have too much time on their hands.

+1000

Read the whole thread before commenting - especially post #28.

I've read.

Can you answer my question?

Forgive me for not knowing modern pack ripping etiquette, but I wouldn't even think to videotape me ripping a pack of any type. I would have probably thought it an even bigger hassle to do what this guy did and scan and post as I was ripping it.

The only exception would be if it was a group buy and you needed proof of what was coming out of the pack.

From what I understand, there's only 50 cards in this series. Doesn't seem that unusual there would be a double sequence of cards in a large cello pack, with perhaps a stray centered card from a different sheet pushed in there.

Perhaps not relevant, but way back when, I busted open boxes worth of 1977-78 OPC WHA Hockey. This was a smaller 66 card set. There was only 12 cards per pack and I remember being annoyed getting double sequences of the same cards within the same pack all the time. Also had plenty of off-centered cards mixed in with the occasional centered card within a pack.

Might well ask what does anyone have to gain from having the top set on the PSA registry. Notoriety, celebrity within our little pathetic circle, lighting up the chat boards, any number of ego boosts.

Sure. Your original question was, ""What does he have to gain by fabricating this?"

Answer: attention - just as in the thread I linked. Unfortunately, in that thread, it wasn't the kind of attention he was looking for.

The only thing I got from that other thread, was that I should have bought as many boxes of 1988-89 Fleer basketball as I could find in 2009, at the prices I saw them trading at. :D

As for the correlation, unless the guy who opened the 1955 Topps pack is the same guy, or he was trying to stimulate the market before dumping a bunch of his own 1955 Topps Cellos on to the market..........I don't see a correlation.

I can't speak for the ripper, but I assume he could care less about the naysayers.

On the CU forum 9.9/10 pack rips are scanned instead of videotaped.

The Gretzky was pulled from a pack but was not a shared rip. He simply posted the card asking for opinions on grades and said it was pulled from a pack.

also, the skeptics would just say he inserted the Clemente and sealed the pack before videotaping it.

Yeah his unusually high 254 posts screams that he is looking for attention.

Why haven't any of the "Clemente Truthers" pointed to the fact that his post history shows a pattern of buying/selling/ripping upopened vintage packs?

The guy that ripped the Fleer Basketball Pack inserted a Jordan and tried to play it off as if it were in the pack. Unfortunately for him, someone knew the sequence and he was busted.

I believe the guy that opened the '55 cello pack inserted the Clemente. I don't believe that Clemente came in the pack for many reasons.

You don't see the correlation? They both tried to fake pack rips. At least that's my contention.

They also show a history of some "amazing" pulls. :rolleyes:

Believe what you want to believe. When a pack contains 19 horribly off-center cards and one dead centered Clemente, that doesn't raise a red flag for you?

Actually, considering the Clemente is notoriously OC, it makes perfect sense to me.

What you think...
https://www.spcforexcel.com/files/im...orrelation.png


In reality...
http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/perma...598195c652.jpg

A dead nuts centered Clemente that he just happens to have?

You're trying to compare a poor '88 Jordan to a pretty nice '55 Clemente.