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BBCgalaxee
Well-known member
- Sep 9, 2011
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This set may only be worth a few bucks today, but it has an interesting place in this hobby.
It celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the store featuring previous league mvp winners.
It also was the first ever time that topps had made a set exclusively to be sold for a retail store (instead of a promotion).
The cards featured reproductions of that year's mvp's card (ex: mantle won in '62 so a 62 topps mantle was shown) and interestingly, the card of fred lynn was "custom made" for this set because he had shared his 1975 card with three others.
Being the first of its kind in a hobby which was just picking up some steam, there was a lot of speculation about this product being limited.
Despite being labeled "limited edition" on the box, there were parts of the country were these sets were everywhere, and others were no one saw them. In a time without internet or large collecting base, these would seem either mass produced or super rare.
That lead to crazy swings in prices.
Original srp was about $2, but ads could be seen selling them for nearly three times that.
But as the year went on, it was clear that their sheer abundance would doom this set because the prices tanked, both in the hobby where collectors & dealers hoarded them, and in the k mart stores which couldn't stop ordering them due to the initial huge sales.
By the start of 1983, despite being a loaded mega star studded product, some k mart stores were seen selling them for a dime per set of 44 cards!
It wouldn't be for another 4 years that the hobby saw the influx of store exclusive 33 & 44 card sets produced by both fleer & topps.
This was the product which started it all.
From info ive collected over the years, each of the 2,000 stores initially got 1,152 or 576 sets ea.
It celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the store featuring previous league mvp winners.
It also was the first ever time that topps had made a set exclusively to be sold for a retail store (instead of a promotion).
The cards featured reproductions of that year's mvp's card (ex: mantle won in '62 so a 62 topps mantle was shown) and interestingly, the card of fred lynn was "custom made" for this set because he had shared his 1975 card with three others.
Being the first of its kind in a hobby which was just picking up some steam, there was a lot of speculation about this product being limited.
Despite being labeled "limited edition" on the box, there were parts of the country were these sets were everywhere, and others were no one saw them. In a time without internet or large collecting base, these would seem either mass produced or super rare.
That lead to crazy swings in prices.
Original srp was about $2, but ads could be seen selling them for nearly three times that.
But as the year went on, it was clear that their sheer abundance would doom this set because the prices tanked, both in the hobby where collectors & dealers hoarded them, and in the k mart stores which couldn't stop ordering them due to the initial huge sales.
By the start of 1983, despite being a loaded mega star studded product, some k mart stores were seen selling them for a dime per set of 44 cards!
It wouldn't be for another 4 years that the hobby saw the influx of store exclusive 33 & 44 card sets produced by both fleer & topps.
This was the product which started it all.
From info ive collected over the years, each of the 2,000 stores initially got 1,152 or 576 sets ea.
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