77 BK Piniella needed, Got 1 thanks

[silvor]

Know the story on how he got so many?

[canjond]

Originally Posted by silvor

Know the story on how he got so many?

I heard this guy is the owner. Explains a lot...

[ALBB]

so much for the rare BK Pinella

[JustinD]

Could you pass on that those rubber bands are triggering my OCD please.

[Cliff Bowman]

I don't know how the guy wound up with 750 1977 Burger King Lou Piniella cards, I would guess that he bought them in one of those storage lot auctions. I do know that he initially had no idea what they were, he thought they were just regular 1977 Topps commons and put them on an eBay But-It-Now auction for 9.2 cents a card with free shipping. I of course bought them and paid immediately. Unfortunately, for me anyway, a couple of hours afterward he canceled the sale and refunded my money. His excuse was that he researched them and was afraid they might be counterfeit, saying that it is against eBay rules to sell counterfeit items. I didn't buy that for a second, I think someone contacted him and told him what they are or more likely offered him much more than what I paid. Easy come, easy go.

[JollyElm]

Does anyone know a single person who ever actually got a 1977 Lou Piniella in a Burger King Yankees 'pack' that year? You know, inside the restaurant? No one I know ever did, and as kids we got about a zillion BK cards that summer. We only found out Sweet Lou's card existed many years later.

Has an uncut Topps/BK sheet ever shown up? If someone truly does have 750 Piniellas (yowza!!), I have to believe maybe they were printed on their own (full sheets of Lou) much later in the run (with the intent of including them in BK packs) and piled up somewhere as the promotion died out. Perhaps the ones that are out there (I have a few), just found their way into collectors' hands via the back door? Of course, this is just idle speculation, but nothing regarding that card's scarcity seems to make any sense.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I have to believe maybe they were printed on their own (full sheets of Lou) much later in the run (with the intent of including them in BK packs) and piled up somewhere as the promotion died out. Perhaps the ones that are out there (I have a few), just found their way into collectors' hands via the back door?

I have the same exact theory. I don't know how many were on a sheet, but I know they were in multiples of 11, probably a sheet of 66. That's a lot of Piniella cards. You can see that there is the right edge of another Piniella card on the left side of this miscut Piniella card to the right. I would imagine that many of the Piniella cards never made it to the Burger Kings, and the people who were supposed to distribute them either threw them away or put them up in storage.