1953-1954 Briggs Meats Panel Collection Including Mantle and Mays (9 Panels)

Sold For:

$82,250

Year:

1953

Auction:

2009 Spring

Lot #:

672

Category:

Postwar Baseball - 1950s Cards

Extraordinary collection of nine 1953-1954 Briggs Meats panels (two-cards per panel) includes seventeen different of the forty cards in the set comprising this rare, unusual, and legendary 1950s regional issue. The collection is highlighted by panels including Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. One card (Fitzgerald) is represented twice among the total of eighteen cards, appearing on two separate uncut panels. The extremely rare Briggs Meats were regionally issued in the Washington D.C. area, in two-card panels (one two-card panel per package of hot dogs). They are almost always found hand-cut from their panels, as intended, often not so neatly, and with serious condition problems relating to their method of issue, including creases and hot dog stains. The 40-card set features twelve stars from all three New York teams and twenty-eight players from the Washington Senators. Even sample cards from this set are rarely seen, and in all our years we can count on one hand the number of complete panels we have ever offered. We have never before seen a large group, like this collection, ever offered. These cards were acquired decades ago by our consignor, a lifelong collector who lives in the Baltimore/Washington area, and who has specialized in collecting baseball cards and memorabilia for the past four decades. We have admired this collection for many years, and after seeing these for the first time some twenty years ago, have since marveled at the fact that we have never seen another substantial group of complete panels. This is a special collection that has survived in this ideal form by chance, and that fortunately found their way into the hands of an advanced collector who appreciated their extreme rarity, and kept them together as a collection, exactly as he acquired them decades ago. There comes a time to sell everything, and this auction will pass the torch to another collector to hopefully someday complete this rare set, though, in this ideal form, adding even another panel may prove to be a great challenge. We have submitted the entire group to be graded and encapsulated by SGC. As one would expect and as can easily be seen, most of the cards in this collection have an appearance far superior to the SGC-assigned grades, as the panels are graded as entire units (as opposed to each individual card graded, independent of the surrounding panel including extra borders and advertising). The SGC condition report is as follows: Mantle/Bauer (FAIR 20, heavy creases through the red border in the center, of which known affect Mantle's image), Mays/Mueller (GOOD 30, bright and crisp, with light creases, and a clean image), Busby/Dixon (FAIR 20), Fitzgerald/Marrero (FAIR 20), Fitzgerald/Mauro (GOOD 30), McDermott/Tipton (FAIR 20), Oldis/Schmitz (FAIR 20), Porterfield/Runnels (GOOD 30), and Terwilliger/Vollmer (GOOD 30). This is an exciting collection of these significant regional rarities. Total 9 panels (two-cards per panel for a total of 18 cards). Reserve $5,000. Estimate (open).

Additional images are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/37009821@N02/ SOLD FOR $82,250