Kellogg's vs Topps

[moeson]

It absolutely was a matter of supply. One could buy complete Topps sets from Stan Martucci, Fritsch, Yeko, Card Collectors Company but no over supply of Kelloggs cards leaked to dealers. Perhaps Kelloggs learned a lesson from the prior year.

[moeson]

Randy, I bought 1972 and 1973 sets from Bob Solon. I believe I got a partial refund once the 72 complete set direct offer came out.

[toppcat]

It's not just the pricing or supply, there were numerous articles on the Kellogg's sets in prior issues. I think the novelty of 3D was quite appealing in the early 70's.

As an aside, complete sets of 1973 Topps were being advertised as early as the May issue, so they were available from the beginning of the season.

[JollyElm]

We kids were mesmerized by the 3-D cards. Absolutely mesmerized!!!! As someone has said, though, the problem was you'd have to go through an entire box of cereal just to get a single card, while you could easily hit the stationery store and buy countless packs of Topps. At the end of summer most of us had a complete or near-complete set of Topps, but sadly only a handful of Kellogg's cards.

[David W]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

We kids were mesmerized by the 3-D cards. Absolutely mesmerized!!!! As someone has said, though, the problem was you'd have to go through an entire box of cereal just to get a single card, while you could easily hit the stationery store and buy countless packs of Topps. At the end of summer most of us had a complete or near-complete set of Topps, but sadly only a handful of Kellogg's cards.

Yes. As an elementary school student, trading cards with friends was what we did. I had to give up quite a bit to get a 72 Kelloggs Willie Mays card, (although I no longer remember how much) since there just were not many out there, and the whole 3-D thing was quite a novelty at the time.

Kellogg's 3-D cards were just highly prized.

[byrone]

What accounts for the relative scarcity of the 1975 Kellogg's issue?

[cardinalcollector]

Originally Posted by moeson

Randy, I bought 1972 and 1973 sets from Bob Solon. I believe I got a partial refund once the 72 complete set direct offer came out.

Howie, Bob Solon is a great name from the past. I had several dealings with him in the early 1970s. He had all those great oddball complete sets. I dealt with Fritsch and Martucci as well. Those were the days.

[moeson]

Cereal cost about 40 cents back then. It would have cost $30 just to get 75 cards. Of course, that would not yield a complete set. By the time collectors realized that there would be no direct offer it would have taken a lot of expensive scrambling for cereal. The shift over to the Football 3D set also curtailed supply. That May 73 The Trader Speaks issue features a Stan Martucci ad offering a 1970 Kelloggs set for $8 but no 1971 Kelloggs set. This was a genuinely tough set to complete!

I hate to open that can of worms, but NY dealer Barry Allen's ad on page 26 shows that the 1973 Topps set was available for only $7 with shipping one series at a time! At the time of the May TTS issue only two series were available.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by moeson

Cereal cost about 40 cents back then. It would have cost $30 just to get 75 cards. Of course, that would not yield a complete set. By the time collectors realized that there would be no direct offer it would have taken a lot of expensive scrambling for cereal. The shift over to the Football 3D set also curtailed supply. That May 73 The Trader Speaks issue features a Stan Martucci ad offering a 1970 Kelloggs set for $8 but no 1971 Kelloggs set. This was a genuinely tough set to complete!

I hate to open that can of worms, but NY dealer Barry Allen's ad on page 26 shows that the 1973 Topps set was available for only $7 with shipping one series at a time! At the time of the May TTS issue only two series were available.

There is a classified on page 30 offering the full 1973 Topps set in the May issue.

I may change the title of this thread to as the worm turns LOL.....

[Exhibitman]

Forget the cards, I've been picking up the box panels. Got these in Cleveland over the summer:

[laughlinfan]

Love those 1970 box panels! Great memories! I can still remember getting three (THREE!!!) cards in one box in 1970, and two of them were from my favorite team (Seaver and Agee)! Days didn't get much better than that for the 5 year old version of me!

Somewhere in the great mass, my mom and I kept lots of empty Kelloggs boxes, but I don't think we started doing that until 1972 or 1973. Will have to dig those out one of these days!

For some reason, as a kid in 1973, I thought we had heard that the "3-D machines" were broken, which is why the 1973 cards were 2-D. The changing vendor seems a more likely explanation.

Anybody know if the 1972 Kelloggs All Time greats were sold as a full set as well? I remember having to eat Kelloggs Danish Go Rounds to get those - I do remember those things had a LOT of sugar in them!