1960-61 "Dodgers" Frito Ticket Folders

[mrmopar]

I know at least a couple members are actively seeking this issue, maybe others are as well in a more inconspicuous manner. I know I would love to add more given the chance, but I suspect I would be priced out if not for dumb luck. The same dumb luck that allowed me to win some at auction in June of 2011.

Ever so often I do a search for ANYTHING related to this issue and almost always come up with the same old stuff. Offers to buy, a few that sold 10 years ago and the same scans I have seen over and over for years now.

Larry Sherry is my only duplicate and I periodically think that I might offer it up for sale now and again, only to back off that idea and forget about them for a while longer. Simply put, coming up with a fair asking price has been my downfall and the thought of listing one on ebay and letting chance take over is unappealing as well. While doing some cleaning and ebay listing since we have all been stuck dealing with Covid lockdowns, I thought about it again today and this time, I did more than I have ever done before. I actually dug them out and scanned these images.

The Sherry was apparently previously unknown, at least the last time the Standard Catalog updated their records online. The sale of 2 of these scarce folders was reported by a blogger in December 2010, where a Neal sold for $180 and the previously uncataloged Sherry apparently sold for $980.00!

http://www.dodgersblueheaven.com/201...dgers.html?m=1

With any issue where examples rarely surface, pricing can be all over the board. I tried to see if any were graded, but am not overly familiar with the PSA website and gave up. I have never seen an image of a graded copy. Perhaps none have been graded before or if they have, the owners are not sharing.

My thought here is if you were me and you had this card that could potentially be offered for sale. What would you do? Would you try to have it graded? Would you consider consigning it to someone who has many more eyes on their items than anything I could sell myself? Would you try to work a deal out with a known buyer?

What do you think is a fair value for this item? The price guide values for scarce issues are rarely realistic. The one shown in the 2010 article looks much nicer than mine though. It almost looks like it was never actually attached to a bag of Fritos. I don't see the normal staple holes the others I have seen had and the colors are crisp.

So, these were stapled to bags of food products in the LA market that had limited shelf life. Unsold stock may have been stripped of the coupon offers. In addition to that, the item itself was meant to be redeemed for a ticket to one of the games. If you were a kid in 1960-61, you probably would have taken them up on that deal. The folder instructs you to cut away the ticket part, which presumably was surrendered to gain entrance into the stadium. If that cut was made, it would be across the lower section of the scan showing "With This Package" at top, so the player image side would have been saved from damage. I'm guessing those coupons were probably collected, counted and possibly tossed away by ticket takers. How about the front part of the folder? That appeared to be something that the owner could have kept, after shearing off the ticket. Maybe some of them were redeemed as a full folder though (no scissors handy) and the player image surrendered as well. Either way, the full folder would be a scarcity to begin with. They were made to be destroyed!

Last thought. This one is directed to ticket collectors. I have seen people selling season and lifetime passes and referencing specific games that one MIGHT have attended with the pass, but a pass is not a ticket stub and there is no way to confirm if a specific pass was used to gain entrance to any specific game. In this case, the coupon/ticket is good for any one of 15 different games. Again in this case, no specific game would have been recorded for the stub, but would this not still count as a possible ticket stub for any one of those 15 games? Say for example, Sandy Koufax threw a no-hitter on one of those dates. Would anyone feel as though this folder has value not only as a scarce collectible, but as a game specific souvenir, even though an unredeemed folder was probably not actually used to gain access to any of the games? I have not checked to see if anything exciting happened at one of those games, but it is something to think about.

I also wonder now if the other players had different game dates printed on them or the same? It would be great to have some first person accounts for how this promotion went down in 1960-61.

Please note that this is not meant to be a solicitation to sell this item right now, although I am looking for feedback on possibly value. If/when I am finally ready to part with this, I will make sure that it is known to anyone who frequents the online message board communities. After all, my hope would be to get the maximum value for it when the time comes to sell or trade it away.