1974 Japanese ANDRE THE GIANT rookie card stash

[wrestlingcardking]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

Thank you for the amazing reply, Mr. Peck. I have visited your website and read your posts on other boards about the Wrestling All-Stars set when I have done Google searches about wrestling cards. I am mostly a pre-war baseball/Jim Thorpe/eastern Pennsylvania sports collector. But as I wrote in wrestlingcardking's autograph thread on here, I grew up on the W(WWF) and was a regular attendee of WWF television tapings in Hamburg, Pa., and Allentown, Pa., as a kid in the late 1970s and early '80s. I have posted on the wrestlingclassics.com message board since around 2000 or 2001.

I have been waffling back and forth on what Andre card to buy for a while now. I had previously ruled out the 1973 Wrestling Annual option because of it being a black and white paper cut out from a magazine.

Thank you again for your opinion.

I apologize for the delay in the response. Dpeck responded in a clearly thought out way on the subject. I will list a few things about each of the cards mentioned. The 1973 annual card is hand cut. I used to be a little concerned about the stock of the card, but once the card is hand cut and in a slab, then what does it really matter at that point? I think the slab does wonders for that issue. I'll always keep an annual Andre in my collection since it is traditional card size and his first issue known. Then you have both Yamakatsu issues with the profile shot and the action shot of picking up an opponent and slamming him. These were both pack issued in Japan and have a card number on back of the card. The writing on back of the card is in Japanese. I do have more love for cards that have some type of writing or numbering on the back of the card over blank backs. While I really despise the action shots of wrestlers in sets like the 1985 Topps, the Andre slam card does not seem to be "too busy" for me. Overall I do think that the profile shot of Andre is the one to have, but the slam issue should not be too far behind. All of this leads to the wrestling all star issue of Andre the Giant. While the all star is a classic known wrestling set, by no means would I be calling this Andre's rookie. It will retain value, but I can think of about a dozen cards that were released prior and even a Gong bromide from 1972 where he is listed as Monster Roussimoff. I did not list this card as it is oversized and features another wrestler on the back of it. I am simply avoiding this issue by having one of each but I think having an XRC of the Yamakatsu profile shot and the All Star would be good picks.