Topps Legendary Vault
From early 1950's on up, Topps has been gathering their rare, unique,
1-of-1 items.
In 1989 they chose Guernsey's Auction House to start unloading
their special rare collectibles. This was such a huge event that
even the auction catalog is a collectible. The auction took place
August 19th and 20th in New York City.
Click to see our current and past
Topps Vault, Proofs & Blank-Backs
They sold everything !!!
Topps work product included mockups, design alternatives,
artwork, photos, negatives, transparencies, flexichromes,
proof sheets, color separations, uncut sheets...
Also: Player's contracts, Canceled checks, Letters,
Unredeemedand redemption prizes, Special Binders of card sets...
Final proceeds of over 3,000 items was around $1.6 million,
a stunning amount in the day. There were (4) additional pages
of non-sport items via mail-only auctions that remained open
until year end. Collector Keith Olbermann attended the auction
and described it to Sports Illustrated, "It's like an archaeological dig."
Topps archive material continued to accumulate after the auction
ending up with another treasure of over 250,000 transparencies,
uncut sheets, color separations, art, photos, slides, proof sheets
& wrappers, canceled checks, contracts and one-of-a-kind
items to sell.
(You may be on that page now) |
1975 Kellogg's Baseball |

Die-Cut A special card that differs from a basic card by "Die-Cutting", cutting away portions of the card to create a special design. Most are serially numbered & limited.
Error Card Baseball card history is filled with error cards, many of them very interesting. Hank Aaron is on 2 of my favorite error cards. Aaron's 1956 Topps card action photo shows Aaron sliding home but it is actually Willie Mays not Aaron. Topps again goofed on Aaron's 1957 "reversed negative" card showing Aaron batting left-handed.
"Error Cards" are usually found early in print runs and often corrected. When this correction happens a VARIATION is created. Some variations are extremely interesting and very expensive while others are totally boring and you wonder why they were even made.
Extended Set Also frequently called Update Set or
Traded Set.
They are sets issued after the original release to update the regular set
with new and traded players.
Facsimile Autograph is an autograph printed on a card to show what the player's actual signature looks like. They are not "real" autographs.
Factory Set are complete sets usually in special boxes produced by the manufacturer. "Hand-Collated Sets" are sets collectors have put together card by card from packs.