1962 Topps High Numbers

[mckinneyj]

The rookie parade cards do command a considerable premium nowadays and seem rare enough in comparison that they deserve it. However, my recollection as a 8 year old back in 62 was that they were pretty common - and, they were the first cards that we'd flip or put into the spokes of our bikes. Who'd ever heard of Bob Uecker, Denis Menke, or Jim Hickman? Who wanted cards with 5 little heads floating in a sea of yellow? They were 5 guys we'd never heard of. For that matter us 8 year olds felt the same about team cards or manager's cards. I'm sure that our behavior contributed some to today's relative rarity.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by mckinneyj

The rookie parade cards do command a considerable premium nowadays and seem rare enough in comparison that they deserve it. However, my recollection as a 8 year old back in 62 was that they were pretty common - and, they were the first cards that we'd flip or put into the spokes of our bikes. Who'd ever heard of Bob Uecker, Denis Menke, or Jim Hickman? Who wanted cards with 5 little heads floating in a sea of yellow? They were 5 guys we'd never heard of. For that matter us 8 year olds felt the same about team cards or manager's cards. I'm sure that our behavior contributed some to today's relative rarity.

As a percentage to their "book value", I agree that these rookie parade cards do seem to sell at a higher percentage than most of the other high series cards, including the SPs. My guess as to why these cards command a higher percent of their BV is first the fact that there are five players representing in most cases five different teams on each card and are a must for a team set collector. More demand for each of these cards by team collectors (in theory 5 times more demand than for a single player card by a team set collector), I would think would help to positively influence the sell prices. Second, some key rookie cards for players like Uek, Pepitone, Hickman, McDowell, Bouton, etc can only positively help their demand.