Auction House Expertise Shines
Last summer I decided to turn to an auction house to sell my 1968 Topps baseball card set. A few years ago I upgraded it so it now included more than 28 PSA-graded cards, including most of the stars.
For the past few years I had been using PWCC to auction some of my older sets. The company served me well. But then it got caught up in a grading scandal involving (unintentionally?) auctioning PSA-graded cards that allegedly had been altered by card doctors.
So this time I turned to REA to auction my ’68 set. I dealt with Dean Faragi, auction director. Everything went smoothly. I was impressed by the detailed write-up in the catalog. The auction ended on December 8, 2019. Throughout that evening I excitedly watched the set rise in price and was extremely pleased when it ended up selling for $4680, including buyer’s premium. So I looked forward to a check for $3900.
Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later I received a check for close to $10,000. I thought there had to be some kind of a mistake and decided it was best not to cash the check until I called up Dean and told him about what I was sure was an accounting boo-boo. But no mistake had been made.
It turns out that my ’68 Topps baseball card set had a Mike McCormick card (#400) that had rare white team lettering. Most McCormick cards from this set have yellow team lettering. Dean took the white team lettering card out of my set, replaced it with a McCormick yellow team lettering card, and sent the card originally in my set off to PSA for grading. It came back in a PSA 8 slab. Wow.
Unbeknownst to me, during the live auction this high-grade, rare card sold for $6,600, including buyer’s premium. Collectors who want every card variation in the sets they’re working on are willing to pay for outstanding examples. I was stunned and elated when Dean told me this.
Would another auction house or dealer have made me aware that I had such a valuable card in my set? I will never know. But I’m glad I had the expert knowledge of REA working for me. They didn’t have to tell me what I had. But they did and I’m grateful. And I assure you I’ll use REA again.
