1972 Topps Baseball High Numbers Pricing
 

I'm working on completing my 1972 semi-high and high number series. Currently, there's an auction on eBay that I have multiple bids. I need the Bobby Murcer, but it's shot up to $65.00 and according to past auction results it may go over $100.00. There are several others that command high than normal prices as well on a consistent basis. Are these particular cards short-printed, or is there another reason?

They've always been popular with collectors. When I set up at local shows in the late 80's you could never keep then in the showcase, even the commons. It's hard to compare with the 71's due to the edge issues on those but from 1968-73 they have always been the most sought after in my experience.

Definitely the most sought over series in the 70’s. I made a mistake by building a 72 Topps set instead of buying one complete, individual highs go for a lot. I still need most of them, and may not finish 72 because I’m not confident they are really worth the price for 70’s Topps cards. Not many bargains to be had with them, demand always seems consistently strong across the grading spectrum.

Have a Plan
 

You don't make in clear, Phil, if it is graded or ungraded. I checked eBay just now and saw a 72 Murcer in NM-MT (and ungraded) going for $66. That could be the one you are talking about. As an aside, it looks real nice BUT personally I don't buy a card on eBay that has not been graded.
My quick advice? Buy it with a plan. By that I mean, set a price you will not go past (say, $90). Know your budget. If you win, great. If not, others will come along in just as nice condition, I assure you. Patience is key when you're buying. I'm 65 and waiting does pay off. Peace and good luck.

None of the cards were short-printed, but there are a couple of other factors involved. A whole bunch of them are extremely tough to find centered, so centered versions sell for huge premiums. Problem is, other sellers see what similar-shaped cards have sold for (without taking into account the centering), and they list their OC cards for the same exorbitantly high prices (and/or auctions escalate to similar levels). Those prices aren't based on the real market, but they are what they are. There is also the New York factor, where the high numbered Yankees (including Bobby Murcer) and Mets (for instance, Koosman IA, who is hard to find centered) seemingly always do better than the usual commons or semi-stars, in my experience.

Thank you for the responses. Several things: I do plan out what I am attempting to purchase. Second, I am collecting the 1970-1972 sets unslabbed. They don't have to be perfectly centered as long as they're not miscut. For me, I want reasonably sharp corners with no creases.

To Darren's point, the Koosman IA was considered, at least in the NY metro area, to be the hardest card in the 72 highs to find in what was once "high grade" raw (Ex-Mt or better essentially) back in the late 80's.

I built the 72 set mostly over the last two years. Finished a couple months ago. I don’t remember the Murcer being difficult. In fact I don’t remember it at all. So I checked to make sure I had it. The Cey RC was a tough one although I think I have two of them now. The Carews are tough, that Koosman IA was also tough. I guess this is one of the toughest binder pages from the 70’s.

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Cey
 

Cey "The Penguin" def. pricey, Dempsey a small sleeper but nothing crazy. A couple other "triple rookie" high numbers a bit more. No technical short print/confusion unlike 71 which is sort of a roller coaster of prices within the high series.... The traded cards of HOFers (Maz, F. Rob. Morgan, Carlton, etc.) obviously more expensive. The 72 set is the ultimate "the price of the whole is not worth the sum of the parts" type of set which is why dealers like to buy these sets cheap and break it up.... There is a nice thread somewhere on this net54 universe that explains which vintage sets have best breakup value and 72 is high, '69 is not for example....As has been stated 72 centering is almost always off so one that is well centered both ways is quite desirable

I wasn't alive when this set was issued, but I know people who were, and they have told me the 72 highs were very difficult (but not impossible) to find in Minnesota.

Im working on ex mint and graded 71/72/73 highs fun but insane too ,not easy great cards guys

Love this card

Luckily In the mid 90’s I bought the complete series from Fritsch. Pretty sure they were put together via wax packs as some had stains on the back. Overall nm to nmmt with typical centering, some great some not. Looking at my registry set it looks like 3 graded mint as well.

John

I think Phil got the answers he wanted, so I hope he won't mind if I take this thread off-course.

I think if you want to buy a card, you should be prepared to pay the market price for it. If you set a budget of $60 for a $90 card, you are going to end up with either a crappy card or no card. And while you are waiting patiently for a magic deal, the card you passed up at $90 is going up, getting farther out of range.

Shaking your fist at the market is not going to make prices come down. Certain cards are expensive for a reason. You just need to accept that and spend your money.



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Since the first post in this discussion, I have finished the 1972 set, mostly in ex-mint condition. I have some upgrading to do, but I don't have any cards that are less than very good to excellent, so I can live with what I have. I have now turned my attention to the 1971 set; mostly upgrading with better-centered cards- 99 needed in total. Yes, Al, I agree with you and please continue with your shift from the initial discussion.

Phil aka Tere1071

Complete 1953 Bowman Color, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 Topps Baseball sets under revision as the budget and wife allows

Under construction:
1970 Topps Baseball - missing over 100 cards, mostly after #450 and the three insert sets

1971 Topps Coins- 107/153

1974 Topps Baseball Washington variations

Either that or decide it's not worth it, and move on to something else.

Dealer's choice!

They are definitely more expensive than they used to be. I started a '72 set about 3-4 years ago, and am about halfway done. Nice high numbers on eBay used to could be had in the $10 range if I remember, not so much anymore. I just paid $20 for a minty Rick Dempsey RC, which was probably too much - but the card caught my eye the other day and I was rendered helpless.

I was fortunate to complete my set back in 1992 or so and I think most of the NM Hi's were between $2 and $3 each for commons. The Dempsey was one of the last 2 or 3 I needed (last one was Pagan IA) and I think the guy charged me maybe 6 or 7 bucks THEN. Right now I'm starting a 1966 set, so it more than evens out in the long-run...

Even if '72 highs feel expensive, I have a feeling they will never touch the level of insanity that '67 now has achieved. Those high number cards might be the end of me. $100 and up for VG copies of players in some cases you have never heard of. Oh, and then there are those two very popular horizontal rookie cards...

hi john omg agree

I’m going to resurrect this thread. I was 2 years old in 1972, so I obviously don’t remember collecting these. I’ve read a few places that 526-787 were all released at the same time. So basically the last two series. Anyone remember if this was true, and if so, why would 659-787 have such a premium over 526-658?

I dunno that's accurate. I recall never seeing a high # in a kid's collection until a few years later when my aunt found one at a garage sale and bought it for me. They just weren't around us kids in NYC or LA.

72 T high
 

I agree with that...Ive been lucky to look at a few " friend discovers his childhood cards " collections....and in almost all cases...few or no high #s

My dad collected the 1972s in Westchester, a suburb of NYC, and he has about three dozen high numbers out of a total of 1100 1972 cards bought from packs.

I never saw them in LA either. I bought my 5th and 6th series from Card Collectors Company in 1974.

I have a (probable) theoretical explanation.

As has been said, usually when people have a box full of 1972 Topps, there's a whole bunch of cards from all across the various series, but it stops dead with no high numbers, or just a scant few.

Since retailers would begin stocking their card areas with the newly-released football, basketball and hockey cards as the season waned (knocking baseball to the back burner), my thought is they may have ordered/received (for instance) a single box of the high series cards and would fill the semi-high series box (that was already on the shelf) with them as needed.

Something along those lines.

It would now be a single box containing multiple series (I have never gotten over the fact that "series" is a zero plural. I want it to sound pluralized like "serieses"!!), so in hindsight people might think they were both issued at the same time.

I worked in a newspaper, card, candy etc. store in my hometown from 1972 through 1979 during my high school and college years. That was exactly what we did with all the candy, including baseball cards. So if the box had say 15 packs in it, I would take some from a new box to "plush it up" as my boss would say. After 1973 cards were no longer issued in series so it did not make much difference then.

Mike

Going from very old memory at this point, I grew up in Central Nassau County on Long Island, about 30 miles from NYC. By the end of summer starting in 1970, I believe I bought the majority of my high number wax packs from the Colonial Maid ice cream truck each year. I never had an issue getting high numbers and 1970 is the first year I really bought cards as a kid. Colonial Maid had the goods back then, especially candy and gum items. I bought hundreds of 1973 Wacky Packages from our neighborhood's truck as well.

I never had problems getting high numbers of any Topps baseball in Minnesota, although I was too young in 1966-67 to notice.
It is of course possible that some remaining boxes of lower numbered cards were filled with high-numbered packs to make them look full, but I doubt this was prevalent. Where I'm from the stores would not order the next series until the priors were sold-- I remember distinctly and painfully having to wait for the current stock to sell out. Only when it was getting down to the very end of current supplies would the store order more, and a time or two I recall there being delays when we had no cards at all. So while there could be some overlap to fill maybe one or two half-filled boxes on the shelves with newly arrived high-numbered packs, I really doubt it happened very often, at least in southern MN.

Summer of 1972, high numbers were easily available in Minot, ND.

I feel like I could've written this post word for word!

Ralph the ice-cream man knew to stop directly in front of my house, and he was always a reliable source of cards (low, high, and Wacky)...

Starting in 1968, my brother and I only bought full boxes. The stores we purchased from would carry both boxes and packs. So, we either had no cards from a series or all or most.

I started buying complete boxes of each series in 1967. A local retailer offered a huge discount for a full box ($1.10 for a 24-pack box instead of the full $1.20!). I had no trouble getting hold of the 1967 HI's, for example.

The trick was to buy the cards as soon as the last series was released. They simply weren't displayed as long as the lower series. On average, each series has a three to five week shelf life, but the final series would usually only be displayed for a week or so, before being displaced by the initial football offering.

Specific to 1972, that was trickier. I know that others have disputed this, but in Queens (part of NYC), the only place I saw the final series was as one-third of a rack pack - the 1972 rack packs included two "pods" of semi-hi cards and one of the high numbers. I don't recall any high number wax packs or even cellos.

1972 was the first year that I built sets from rack pack boxes sold by a toy wholesaler on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He never received any high number boxes that year. My high numbers were also sourced from the 5th series rack third panes, plus a single 6th series wax box that a Catskills candy wholesaler agreed to sell to a then 17yo collector.

That is right..the key to obtaining boxes was to grab them right when they were released. I remember my brother asking the store owner to reserve him a box of the last series...and they were only allocated one box.