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A massive collection of forgotten Topps baseball cards, including some rarities worth several thousands of dollars, is headed to auction after they were rediscovered in a Northern California home.
More than 10,000 vintage cards are in the collection, including hundreds of rare cards of baseball’s most important figures, including Dodgers stars Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella, as well as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Ted Williams. There are more than 65 vintage cards of Mickey Mantle, one of the most sought after figures in the card collecting industry, amongst the sprawling collection.
The cards are part of a highly sought run of Topps cards from 1958 and 1959, with vibrant backgrounds and icons of the sport from the memorabilia company’s “golden era.”
The anonymous owner of the cache of collectibles began accumulating the cards in an attempt to create complete as many sets as possible.
“I wanted to collect as many of them as I could,” the collector said. “I started putting the cards in numerical order, but the collection grew too large to keep up.”
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He continued to collect throughout the years and ultimately kept the cards safe and preserved in boxes hidden away in a bedroom where they eventually became forgotten artifacts. Years later, the cards were discovered by the same collector while cleaning out a messy bedroom.
Collection Could Fetch Six Figures
Due to the size of the collection, the cards are being auctioned off in two parts through Auction Monthly. A spokesperson for the auction house said he expects the two lots could sell for more than $60,000 combined, with individual cards and complete sets that could fetch thousands on their own. It’s estimated the total worth of all 10,000-plus cards could be in the six figures.
“This may be the only opportunity in a collector’s lifetime to purchase a one-of-a-kind 1950’s Topps Baseball card lot like this,” said Ryan Jones, Auction Monthly’s Director of Marketing. “We have never seen anything close to this size of a two-year collection of 1950’s Topps baseball cards offered at auction.”
The “unprecedented” collection includes 35 Stan Musial cards from 1958; 170 combined cards of Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax; 15 combined rookie cards of Roger Maris and Bob Gibson; and rare variations of “hundreds of key stars and short prints.”
“This transaction represents a special milestone in our six-year history of specializing in 1950s Topps baseball cards,” Jones added. The auction house says it has facilitated the sale of millions of vintage cards in its history.
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