1972 Topps Baseball High Numbers Pricing

[mikemb]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I have a (probable) theoretical explanation.

As has been said, usually when people have a box full of 1972 Topps, there's a whole bunch of cards from all across the various series, but it stops dead with no high numbers, or just a scant few.

Since retailers would begin stocking their card areas with the newly-released football, basketball and hockey cards as the season waned (knocking baseball to the back burner), my thought is they may have ordered/received (for instance) a single box of the high series cards[B][B][B][B][B][B] and would fill the semi-high series box (that was already on the shelf) with them as needed.]

Something along those lines.

It would now be a single box containing multiple series (I have never gotten over the fact that "series" is a zero plural. I want it to sound pluralized like "serieses"!!), so in hindsight people might think they were both issued at the same time.

I worked in a newspaper, card, candy etc. store in my hometown from 1972 through 1979 during my high school and college years. That was exactly what we did with all the candy, including baseball cards. So if the box had say 15 packs in it, I would take some from a new box to "plush it up" as my boss would say. After 1973 cards were no longer issued in series so it did not make much difference then.

Mike

[toppcat]

Going from very old memory at this point, I grew up in Central Nassau County on Long Island, about 30 miles from NYC. By the end of summer starting in 1970, I believe I bought the majority of my high number wax packs from the Colonial Maid ice cream truck each year. I never had an issue getting high numbers and 1970 is the first year I really bought cards as a kid. Colonial Maid had the goods back then, especially candy and gum items. I bought hundreds of 1973 Wacky Packages from our neighborhood's truck as well.

[nolemmings]

I never had problems getting high numbers of any Topps baseball in Minnesota, although I was too young in 1966-67 to notice.
It is of course possible that some remaining boxes of lower numbered cards were filled with high-numbered packs to make them look full, but I doubt this was prevalent. Where I'm from the stores would not order the next series until the priors were sold-- I remember distinctly and painfully having to wait for the current stock to sell out. Only when it was getting down to the very end of current supplies would the store order more, and a time or two I recall there being delays when we had no cards at all. So while there could be some overlap to fill maybe one or two half-filled boxes on the shelves with newly arrived high-numbered packs, I really doubt it happened very often, at least in southern MN.

[62corvette]

Summer of 1972, high numbers were easily available in Minot, ND.

[inceptus]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Going from very old memory at this point, I grew up in Central Nassau County on Long Island, about 30 miles from NYC. By the end of summer starting in 1970, I believe I bought the majority of my high number wax packs from the Colonial Maid ice cream truck each year. I never had an issue getting high numbers and 1970 is the first year I really bought cards as a kid. Colonial Maid had the goods back then, especially candy and gum items. I bought hundreds of 1973 Wacky Packages from our neighborhood's truck as well.

I feel like I could've written this post word for word!

Ralph the ice-cream man knew to stop directly in front of my house, and he was always a reliable source of cards (low, high, and Wacky)...

[rats60]

Originally Posted by mikemb

I worked in a newspaper, card, candy etc. store in my hometown from 1972 through 1979 during my high school and college years. That was exactly what we did with all the candy, including baseball cards. So if the box had say 15 packs in it, I would take some from a new box to "plush it up" as my boss would say. After 1973 cards were no longer issued in series so it did not make much difference then.

Mike

Starting in 1968, my brother and I only bought full boxes. The stores we purchased from would carry both boxes and packs. So, we either had no cards from a series or all or most.

[akleinb611]

I started buying complete boxes of each series in 1967. A local retailer offered a huge discount for a full box ($1.10 for a 24-pack box instead of the full $1.20!). I had no trouble getting hold of the 1967 HI's, for example.

The trick was to buy the cards as soon as the last series was released. They simply weren't displayed as long as the lower series. On average, each series has a three to five week shelf life, but the final series would usually only be displayed for a week or so, before being displaced by the initial football offering.

Specific to 1972, that was trickier. I know that others have disputed this, but in Queens (part of NYC), the only place I saw the final series was as one-third of a rack pack - the 1972 rack packs included two "pods" of semi-hi cards and one of the high numbers. I don't recall any high number wax packs or even cellos.

[moeson]

1972 was the first year that I built sets from rack pack boxes sold by a toy wholesaler on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He never received any high number boxes that year. My high numbers were also sourced from the 5th series rack third panes, plus a single 6th series wax box that a Catskills candy wholesaler agreed to sell to a then 17yo collector.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by akleinb611

....The trick was to buy the cards as soon as the last series was released. They simply weren't displayed as long as the lower series. On average, each series has a three to five week shelf life, but the final series would usually only be displayed for a week or so, before being displaced by the initial football offering....

That is right..the key to obtaining boxes was to grab them right when they were released. I remember my brother asking the store owner to reserve him a box of the last series...and they were only allocated one box.