It has become undeniable that collectibles have become an alternative asset class. Collectors and investors are now openly and creatively competing for the same assets. Baseball cards are perhaps the most iconic examples of vintage collectibles with rarity and with high demand and Collectors Lens evaluates many opportunities within these collectibles.

One facet of collecting and investing in cards is purchasing a complete set of cards. Vintage collectors have referred to the T206 tobacco set, known for the famed multi-million dollar Honus Wagner card, as “The Monster” baseball card set. What many vintage collectors and investors alike may not consider is that there are actually 3 sets within the valuable and popular sets that should all be considered “The Monster.”

These sets have hundreds of players and the scarcity of available cards to purchase for a set can range from difficult to obtain to almost impossible to obtain. And at higher grading the samples may be impossible to obtain because they no longer exist. Putting a vintage card set together can take years even in an eBay and auction-driven world.

What both collectors and investors have to consider about complete sets in vintage cards is that a complete set may be viewed with a high degree of subjectivity from person to person. A collector may not care if all of the cards are graded or if the set is in pristine condition. An investor may simply want the best that money can buy. Some investors will also buy a complete graded set solely to sell the cards off individually because the “sum of the parts” can become more valuable than the combined value today.

There are three sets that vintage collectors and investors both know quite well. Two of the entire sets might not be so large by modern set standards, but one will likely never be eclipsed within reason. The true “Monster Set” was the famed T206 set from the American Tobacco Company which has the infamous multi-million dollar rare Honus Wagner card. Another so-called “Monster” was the 1952 Topps baseball card set, but one set that is lesser known due to its age is the N172 Old Judge from Goodwin & Co. which was produced back in 1887.

Another issue to consider is that buying an entire set versus an individual card, particularly in these vintage cards, is going to cost a small fortune. Forget a pretty pennies here and consider that this is going to cost in the tens of thousands (or far more) for any of these complete sets in good condition.

Collectors Lens does recognize that each of these 3 monster sets are more likely to be considered “Holy Grail” items within collectibles. These sets do not generally have to have to the incredibly rare cards nor the cards that cost in the tens-of-thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to be considered “complete” for collectors and investors.

These three sets are being reviewed in reverse order due to the availability and popularity of each set. While the review includes the population of graded cards, every collector knows that there are perhaps exponentially more cards of each set out there which have never been graded. After all, some collectors still prefer raw cards, some cards are in too low of a condition to justify the expense, and many are still locked away in private collections. And some are still undiscovered and waiting to be found again.

1952 TOPPS BASEBALL

The 1952 Topps baseball card set was not the first set produced by Topps, but it was their debut as a true leader in sports cards. The company wanted to overtake Bowman in sports cards. While opinions are subjective and can vary, this 1952 Topps set is widely considered to be the most popular baseball card set ever produced. The set is made of beautifully painted images that are mostly portraits of the baseball players of the day. It boasts 407 cards and the 2 5/8″ X 3 3/4″ size was also a much larger format card than its rival Bowman. Topps more than succeeded with the release of this blockbuster set.

Without getting into the minutia, there were different runs with the low numbers, semi-high numbers (251-310) and high numbers (311-407). The last series is where the big-money cards reside – players like Mickey Mantle’s most iconic card, and players like Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Eddie Mathews and others. The Willie Mays card that can now easily run in the tens of thousands of dollars for any grades at very good or better is in the semi-high series. There are also red back and black back variations in many of the cards.

While there are exponentially more cards which have not been graded, PSA’s population report showed about 270,000 samples of the entire set have been graded as of April 2021. SGC listed 31,013 cards graded as its population report between new grading and old grading standards. As of April 2021, the population of Mickey Mantle “rookies” is just 1,745 graded by PSA and 549 graded cards from SGC.

If you put this in context of perhaps 500,000 interested collectors, the entire graded population of cards from the entire 1952 Topps set leaves less than 1 graded card per collector/investor, and that is without considering the value of the common cards versus stars and super-stars.

1909-1911 T206 BASEBALL

The American Tobacco Company produced the famous T206 baseball cards set from the years 1909 to 1911, and this was considered baseball’s true “Monster Set” because it counts 524 different cards. The set comes with 390 cards from professional players from the major league of the era. There are also 134 minor league players which are generally more rare and higher in price than common players from the larger run.

These small cards were inserts in cigarette packs of and they came with one purpose: selling more cigarettes. One driving force which was a success for the tobacco companies was that it was relatively easy to pull a star player of the day. Many players in the T206 set, many of whom are in the Hall of Fame, have multiple cards. Ty Cobb and Joe Tinker each have 4 cards. Players like Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Christy Mathewson and others have more than 1 card from those years as well.

There are 16 different backs for T206 cards. The most common advertisement backs are Piedmont, Sweet Caporal, Old Mill and Sovereign, and the remaining backs with brands generally come with a multiplier in their prices. Some T206 collectors even break down the cards by the cigarette factory number they were produced in.

This famous baseball set was not the first nor the last of the era’s tobacco cards, but it was the largest and most widely distributed in cigarette packs in the decade before World War 1. PSA’s entire graded population report including the half/+ and qualifier grades was more than 253,000 as of April 2021.

To put the total number of T206 cards in context, there are nearly as many T206 tobacco cards graded as there are 1952 Topps cards graded. That is despite the tobacco era being about 110 years old versus 70 years old for the Topps cards in the bubble gum era.

Collecting a set of T206 cards is possible because of how many cards are available. Its “complete set” status does not require the rare Honus Wagner and Eddie Plank cards, nor does it require the well known “error cards” to be counted a complete set.

When these complete sets do come to auction, they are generally broken up and sold individually. Otherwise the pool of buyers who can throw $50,000 or $100,000 (or more) will be much smaller.

N172 OLD JUDGE BASEBALL

The black and white sepia photo Old Judge (N172) tobacco series was produced by Goodwin & Co. and was issued from 1887 to 1890. Here is why collectors should consider the Old Judge as baseball’s true “Monster Set” — There were roughly 500 cards, but there are thousands of unique cards because of the variations of stances and players in uniform or in wearing coats and ties. And because there are so many variations, despite the set now being more than 130 years of age, new cards and new variations are still being discovered each year.

To set the record straight, it is simply an impossible task for any collector or investor to assemble a complete N172 set unless they have the money, time and persistence to go out and purchase every one of these cards that exist. Even then, it’s safe to stick with the task being impossible. PSA has estimated that there are 4,500 or more cards considering the player variations and poses and considering that boxers and wrestlers were included from the major league baseball teams. The N172 set also features players from minor league teams which have since faded into history.

What is possible is to collect one or more sample of each the 25 Hall of Fame players like Cap Anson, Charles Comisky, Clark Griffith, Jim O’Rourke and others. This will still require much patience and a deep pocketbook.

With the Gypsy Queen backs and the Old Judge backs, each card measures 1 1/2″ X 2 1/2″ in a sepia image that was new technology at the time. The Gypsy Queens are more scarce and more valuable than the more common Old Judge backs. The PSA population report counts just 5,405 graded samples. Time has not been a friend to the photography stock of the late 1800s. Improper storage for decades by collectors who did not know better, or not even knowing they had them, has created a lot of samples where the fading makes the image and typeset hard to see.

PSA’s site notes that there are less than 100 cards graded 8 or higher. The “sweet spot” of the PSA grading with the highest sample count is the PSA 2 grade with 1,103 samples. Due to these cards now being so old, collectors often give cards with better photo quality higher valuations versus cards with faded photos, even if the latter may actually have a higher grade.

MONSTER COLLECTORS VERSUS MONSTER INVESTORS

It is impossible to know which cards and which complete sets will appreciate the most or hold their value the most over time. Just like investing in a stock, there is no assurance at all for any buyer that the price paid one day will generate a higher sale price in a week, month, year or decade.

A relatively new dilemma for baseball card collectors is that they now live in a world where many collectors can no longer afford their hobby. Investors have bid up the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards and the T206 Honus Wagner cards with recent sales breaking records — more than $5 million for Mickey, and more than $3 million for Honus.

The sports collectibles segment has yet to see a $10 million single card sale. A complete vintage set of these mentioned in the highest grades available would easily run into the millions of dollars. Those sales figures should come with an asterisk because the finest samples graded by PSA have not come to auction in some time.

Some investors love to play the “go back in time” game and say which stocks (usually Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) they would buy if they were able to go back in time. If you ever land in a real time machine and go back to the 1990s or 1980s, any investor would have done as well (or better) buying some of the cards mentioned in this report based on the selling prices seen in 2020 and 2021.