A Card Hoarder Comes Clean (1962 Post Cereal baseball)

[LuckyLarry]

I’m a big fan of 1962 Post baseball cards, and as a nine year old cut the cards off the boxes myself. I still have a few from my original collection. There are a couple of Post Cereal experts out there, and I learned a lot about this set over the years, including information that some of the cards are tougher to find than the others. Sometimes based on what kind of cereal box they came on. One of the cards that I learned was tougher than the others was #10 Yankee Ralph Terry.

There are two photo color versions of #10. The “black” photo color version of #10 came from 10oz Sugar Coated Corn Flakes. The “blue” photo color version of #10 came from 16oz Grape Nut Flakes. Reported the “blue” version is tougher to find because who ever ate Grape Nut Flakes?

For many years I have scoured binders and bargain bins seeking examples of this card, willing to pay the sticker price of $1 or $2. Last week I acquired my 50th example (via Ebay) cost $2.80 after taxes and shipping. Fifty examples should be enough, but I’ll admit whenever I come across a box of beat up 1962 Post Cereal cards, I’ll always look for #10.

I have 34 “blue” versions and 16 “black” versions, even though “blue” are reported to be tougher. I also have an uncut box back with the “black” photo color version cut from the back of a 10oz Sugar Coated Corn Flakes box.

Current eBay search reveals four listed examples: $16.99, $35, $35, $58.04

RIP Ralph Terry 3/16/22

crossposted: OBC/Net54/Secret Board

[JollyElm]

Cool stuff...and you are definitely not alone in the hoarding department!!


835. Amasstodon
A long-time collector sporting a massive accumulation of cards who comes to the realization that he doesn’t so much collect cards as he does stockpile them.

[brian1961]

Hey, Larry! Nice post and pictures. That's quite a haul of Ralph Terry. Were he still alive, I know he'd be very amused.

You mentioned Post Grape Nuts Flakes. That geriatric cereal was tied to a pair of chapters in my book, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. One chapter concerned the initial Post offering from 1960, whilst the other figured heavily concerning a pair of stalwarts from their last set, 1963. I had a lot of fun, and put a great deal of effort into writing my book.

If you don't already own them, please do try to hunt down a copy of Dan Mabey's Post Cereal books. Dan put SO MUCH research and photos into each of them. They are hard to find now, and very expensive, as they should be for what he put into them. Like mine, they aren't the kind of tome you'd ever find at Barnes 'n Noble.

Happy hunting, Larry. --- Brian Powell

[ALBB]

I wish Dan could reprint that book for other collectors

[timzcardz]

Originally Posted by LuckyLarry

One of the cards that I learned was tougher than the others was #10 Yankee Ralph Terry.



Reported the “blue” version is tougher to find because who ever ate Grape Nut Flakes?

I LOVED Grape Nuts!

As for the real reason that that the Terry "Blue" version is tougher, I understand that one man has them all and isn't selling!

[lampertb]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Cool stuff...and you are definitely not alone in the hoarding department!!

Isn't that supposedly why the Titus T206 was worth stupid money for a while, somebody just gobbled them all up?

[Section103]

Wasnt too long ago I saw a full (miniature sized) cereal box go up for sale featuring Wally Moon. Man, I wanted that bad, just couldnt bring myself to go near $1,000 for it.

[ALBB]

The 62 Post cards were a set that...

.after being in the baseball card hobby for a while.. and figured out Topps/Bowman/Fleer set and prices....a lot of guys saw it as an easy set..with quite reasonable prices...and found it pretty easy to complete

[tulsaboy]

I think the Post sets are pretty neat. I wish that cards were still printed on the sides of grocery items. They made for some cheap but fun cards for kids to acquire. Hostess, Kelloggs, Post, Jello, Kraft Mac and Cheese, Jiffy...lots of fun for baseball card kids.
kevin

[brian1961]

Originally Posted by ALBB

The 62 Post cards were a set that...

.after being in the baseball card hobby for a while.. and figured out Topps/Bowman/Fleer set and prices....a lot of guys saw it as an easy set..with quite reasonable prices...and found it pretty easy to complete

Albert, as someone who collected them ravenously in 1962, I must say the Post Cereal set was most assuredly NOT easy to complete THAT year. I turned 8 the summer of '62, saw the Post commercials with major league baseball stars touting the "FREE" trading cards on Saturday morning TV, and my interest got aroused.

I proceeded to go grocery shopping with my dear mother every chance I got. She allowed me to select the cereal. I had a decent memory for an 8-year-old, and so I chose Post boxes with cards I did not have, naturally.

I was the youngest in a family of 5. My Dad was gone much of the time in his documentary work for NBC as a motion picture cameraman. If my older brother or sister ate cereal, I wasn't aware of it. Had I been a couple years older, I probably would have enlisted their help to eat the Post we had....

My Mom preferred the 40% Bran Flakes. I enjoyed the Alpha-Bits, but I forced myself to eat whatever we had to get more of the cards. I was very much aware of the cause and effect.....

Now, I avidly collected the baseball Topps, and still recall getting Ralph Houk to complete the first series. Yet, collecting Topps was a breeze compared to the Post Cereal. It wasn't even close. In my mind, I had to work like crazy to amass a good collection of the Post Cereal. Ever try to eat 2 bowls of cereal, one right after the other? To a kid who likes eating cereal, that was still a lot of work. Plus, I had to keep close watch when Mom was off to the supermarket. I also had to carefully, V-E-R-Y C-A-R-E-F-L-L-Y, cut the cards off the back of the box!

I well remember the time I reached 100 of the 1962 Post Cereal baseball. ONE HUNDRED CARDS---WOW!!! In my little kid's mind, that was a major achievement. I don't think I got very much farther along after 100 cards, but from my standpoint, I did well. Furthermore, I was much, much more engaged collecting the Post than I was the Topps. Those cards looked so colorful and vibrant, compared to the Topps. On top of that, Post gave us kids those terrific TV commercials to entice, and motivate us.. Topps offered no commercials; nada. So in my kid mind, Post, using a superlative of the time, was "THE MOST!"

About 15 years ago, during the lousy recession of 2008-09, I sold my childhood 1962 Topps baseball card collection, saving my best Roger Maris, and the ugly Mickey Mantle. I didn't get very much, but it was done through a rather mundane auction house. Then again, a childhood '62 Topps collection, even though I took good care of them through the years, was / is considered common as dirt.

As for my childhood 1962 Post Cereal baseball cards, you better believe I still have them! I worked too hard to amass those what, 110 cards.

The interesting twist to this story is the following year, I managed to get only one box of 1963 Post Cereal with the baseball cards on the backside.

Why, you might ask?

Simply put, I was thoroughly sick and tired of POST CEREAL, and I mean downright satiated. No more, until many years later.

As an adult, I was able to bid and win a pair of beautiful Post short prints from 1963----Roger Maris & Mickey Mantle. It seemed like they were everywhere in 1962, but then come 1963, Post virtually "hid" them on backs of a certain size of POST GRAPE NUTS FLAKES, that "wonderful" geriatric cereal known to keep people my current age on the go-go. As I stated earlier, I had a lot of fun writing that up in NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN.

Not to go off on my book, I will warn you that the Amazon digital download doesn't look right; the transfer did not go through quite right. Tragically, I am at a loss as to how to correct it. So, on the slim chance any of youse guys want the much better-looking physical copy of my E-book on a CD, requiring a disk drive on your computer to read, I do still have copies, for $30 bucks each, postpaid. I'm not planning to lower the price; if anything, I'll probably just throw the unsold copies away.

Well, if you've read thus far, thank you for allowing an old man to reminisce. The summer of '62 was a lot of fun, very FULL-filling. --- Brian Powell

[ALBB]

Wow, that's some nice memories

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by ALBB

The 62 Post cards were a set that...

.after being in the baseball card hobby for a while.. and figured out Topps/Bowman/Fleer set and prices....a lot of guys saw it as an easy set..with quite reasonable prices...and found it pretty easy to complete

That's exactly the conclusion I came to. I was seeing how much fun my buddy was having, working on his 1956 and then 1955 Topps sets, that I decided to work on completing a set, too. The 1960s are my decade of choice, and the 1962 Post set, besides being the most attractive and clever (AL and NL players having different color schemes,) there were no cards more expensive than the Mantle, at a very reasonable $50 to $60. In fact, after Mickey, I think all cards can be found in decent shape for $30 or less.

Also, no concerns about whether cards are trimmed, since they all are.

I'm currently 5 cards away from completing my second set. If anyone has available an extra Wynn, Versalles, Marichal, Torre, or White, let me know.