In order of closing date (prices as of Sunday evening PT):

Elite Collectibles (ending March 17)

⚾ 1967 Topps Pete Rose #430 (raw - edges) - $26

⚾ 1968 Topps Game (Home Run) Wille Mays #8 (raw - surface) - $11.50

🏒 1980 Topps Wayne Gretzky Record Breaker #3 (raw - unscratched) - $9

Goldin Weekly Auction (ending March 19)

⚾ 1973-79 TCMA All-Time Greats #29 Hank Greenberg Signed Card - Beckett Authentic - $14

🏀 Pat Riley Signed Trading Card PSA/DNA Authentic (1970 Topps Tall Boy #13) - $14

🏈 1969 Topps #26 Brian (misspelled “Bryon”) Piccolo PSA 4.5 - $16

REA (ending March 22)

⚾ 1934-36 R327 Diamond Stars #31 Kiki Cuyler (1935 Green Back) SGC Fair 20 - $10

⚾ 1962 Bazooka Frank Robinson PSA Authentic - $10

🥊 1938 W.A. & A.C. Churchman “Boxing Personalities” #12 Jack Dempsey PSA 6 - $10

Other active auctions:

Hunt Auctions (ends March 25)

SCP Auctions (ends March 29)

The Collector Connection (ends March 29)

Wheatland Auction (ends April 12)

💰 Pair of 1952 Topps Mantles, High-Grade Julius Erving Rookie Lead REA March Auction

⚾ Rare 1909 Ramly Cards Discovered in Old Cigar Box Tell Tale of Red Sox Pitcher and Baseball’s Hidden Color Line

💰 New Group of Golden Age Collection Signed Cards Up for Auction

⚾ Longtime Collector Preserving Cuban Baseball Heritage With Large Collection of Cards, Memorabilia From His Home Country

💰 New Memory Lane Marketplace Includes Signed Sandy Koufax Rookie Card and T206 Sweet Caporal Eddie Plank

⚾ Five Hidden Treasures From 1933 Goudey Cards

In 1981, both Joe Klecko and Mark Gastineau had 20 or more sacks apiece for the New York Jets as part of the New York Sack Exchange. I can’t imagine two teammates ever doing that again.

Joe Klecko - DT-NT-DE

HOF Induction in 2023

Standout Stats:

As you can tell, this card hasn’t been graded much relative to most Hall of Famers, but his rookie card in a PSA 10 still commands a strong price, last sold in 2021 for $1,000.

Other than the one aberration in July, Klecko’s collector-grade rookie card maintains a pretty steady price (if and when it sells), with an average sale price of $17.55.

We all have that one story. That card we shouldn’t have sold. That card we should’ve bought. The one that got away.

Sy Berger has one of those stories, but his may well have changed the history of the hobby … whether it’s true or not.

Berger joined the Topps Bubble Gum Company in 1947. In the fall of 1951, he worked with Woody Gelman to design the 1952 Topps baseball cards, a set that would become one of the most influential in the hobby’s history, launching the modern era of collecting and introducing statistics to baseball cards.

The set came out in six different series, the last series numbered 311-407. As the 1952 baseball season progressed, fewer cards were produced, with the last series - the high-number series - having the lowest print run. It was produced late in the summer of ‘52, then headed to stores.

The timing, though, wasn’t great, since kids were heading back to school, and the football season was right around the corner.

So while the first five series sold well, the sixth series cards sat on shelves. And sat. Eventually, retailers had to return boxes and cases to Topps.

Or, according to PSA, some stores didn’t bother to order them in the first place, since it was so late in the baseball season and they thus assumed the cards wouldn’t sell, meaning kids either didn’t know the cards existed or couldn’t find them if they looked.

Little did they know, that series had superstars like Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, and rookies of Hoyt Wilhelm and Eddie Mathews. Oh, and this guy.

As this Sports Collectors Digest article notes, cards in the 1950s were “treated as a consumer product, not as a collectible,” so Topps put all the unopened 1952 high-number product into a warehouse in Brooklyn as they moved on to their 1953 cards.

Those 1952 Topps high-number cards sat in the warehouse for years. Then, in 1959, as Topps needed more space in the warehouse, Berger tried to sell them again.

“‘Around 1959 or so, I went around to carnivals and offered them for a penny a piece, and it got so bad I offered them at 10 for a penny. They would say, “We don’t want them.”’”

(Just take a moment to think about that, knowing what you do now.)

That meant having to get rid of the cards. And this is when the story starts to diverge, depending on who you believe.

During my research, I came across this. With thanks to Alex Ferguson, who allowed me to use the following photo he posted on Facebook in 2024, here’s the letter Alex received from Sy Berger about what happened to those 1952 Topps high-number cards.

“Dear Alex:

Many thanks for your kind and most flattering letter. You can be assured that I appreciated (it to) no end.

As for the ‘card dumping’ - The first series of the 1952 (Cards 1-310) Set was a complete sellout. Based on this we decided to do a second Series (311-407). Unfortunately this Series came back from the printer in September - and Football was getting the interest. The result (was) we couldn’t sell the Second Series. I couldn’t even give the cards away (this was in 1959 and we needed the warehouse space). So - at the time the most safe and inexpensive way to get rid of these cards was to dump them in the Atlantic Ocean - so I did it.

Note: Enclosed are your 4 cards - all signed.

Sy Berger”

(Editor’s Note: I made a couple additions to clarify what I assumed was his intent)

Pretty cool, right?

Depending on which article I read, either two or three garbage trucks full of the cards drove to a barge, which the cards were loaded onto. That barge traveled via the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean, where the cards were dumped.

It was approximately 300-500 cases, which could mean more than 1 million cards and tens of thousands of the legendary (and double-printed) Mickey Mantle card are in the murky depths.

Per Sy Berger’s Wikipedia page: “Evidence has subsequently revealed what is almost certainly the true whereabouts of these 1952 Topps high-series cards and casts great doubt that Berger’s story was entirely truthful, particularly the part about dumping the cards into the ocean.”

It goes on to mention that some card collectors went to Caracas, Venezuela, multiple times between 1959 and 1968 to buy the Venezuela Topps cards, ones that started to come out in 1959. Those collectors put ads in newspapers, wanting to buy the Venezuela Topps cards, and among the people who came to sell them the cards, some had 1952 Topps high-number cards - and as the above SABR article notes, Topps cards were being shipped to Latin American countries as early as, yes, 1952.

Meanwhile, per The Topps Archives (which is all about Topps, but not an official Topps site), not only did the high-number cards show up in Venezuela, but also in Canada and at military PXs.

In one Topps Archives article, the writer mentions a Card Collectors’ Company catalog in 1959 not listing any 1952 Topps high-number series cards for sale, but in 1960 (around the time Berger was reported to have disposed of the cards), the cards from that series showed up in the catalog.

The Topps Archives does a pretty thorough deep dive into why the high-number cards ocean dumping story is questionable, with the writer noting that the story doesn’t appear in print until 1975 - and also speculates on the timing of that story coming out just three weeks after a fire at the Card Collectors’ Company and what that could mean.

Sy Berger’s version is a great story and who doesn’t love a great story, and if anyone would know what happened with those cards, you’d think it would be him.

But where’s the proof?

The other evidence is certainly intriguing and does make you wonder, but I don’t know that it proves the cards weren’t dumped. What we do know is that high-number cards made it out into the world, but we don’t know how many of them were produced in total, meaning it’s hard to gauge how many should be out there.

Personally, I want to believe the Sy Berger story, because it’s part of hobby lore. But, because the proof depends almost solely on Berger’s telling, and there’s other potential evidence that could cast doubt on that story, I’ll apparently need to send an unmanned underwater vehicle into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Or maybe this guy can help.

What do you think happened? And do you know of any other evidence? Let us know.