1952 Christmas Rack Pack with Mantle

[ALR-bishop]

Tim-- if by legit you mean the Murphy packs were put together in the 60s, 70s or even early 80s by someone who then tried to sell them in retail stores at Christmas time in some unspecified time frame, there is no hard or conclusive evidence that I know of to confirm that. Nor is it clear whether whoever is churning them out today is different from the original source. But there are some, usually people claiming to sell or resell the Murphy "originals", that claim the older packs are more likely to be "legit" in that they are more likely to contain star cards in the middle because of being packaged at a time the cards were less valuable. But no one claims they were packaged by Topps and all seem to agree the cards are second hand returns or handled stock in Ex condition at best.

There are sellers who claim that by examining the staples and configuration of the packaging you can tell the old from the new packs. That maybe true but I am not CSI enough to verify that.