1972 Topps Baseball High Numbers Pricing

[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.