One of my good friends is also involved in the baseball card hobby. In fact, the very first “collection” I ever bought went halfsies with Dave. We filled the back of his pickup truck with a bunch of junk wax boxes and sets from an antique store.
Dave reached out to me this summer and said the local auction house in western Illinois acquired a large collection of sports memorabilia, mostly sports cards, to auction. He was assisting in cataloging and pricing.
This collection wasn’t just junk wax – which there is a lot. It has some high end cards, like a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth and a Gordie Howe rookie card. Both were sent to PSA to guarantee authentication and get graded before hitting the auction block.
The auction is currently live and ends on December 1, 2020. I have been monitoring the auction, but since it is online for 30 days, I am holding out until the final days as to not get my hopes up on being the high bidder at low amounts.
Kyle Kelso Auctioneer Sports Memorabilia Auction
Highlights include: 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth PSA 2, 1966 Topps Bobby Orr rookie PSA 2, vintage singles, unopened wax, and more.
Over the last couple months Dave has reached out a few times with questions over certain items. This weekend he reached out asking about a 1993 Topps Finest listing and asked if they were refractors.
The listing never caught my eye in previous visits, so I took a look. It is 1993 Topps Finest Gold Signature Series. It’s a small box set and the cards come inside a screw down holder and the holder has a gold signature at the top. The signature is not an actual autograph, rather a facsimile etched in gold into the case.
The starting bid was set low and a couple weeks into the auction it is already up over $50, which surprised me at first glance.
Dave fed me a little more information he received from the auction house. The original owner kept the receipt. He paid $350 for this box set in 1993. That is a pretty penny, especially almost 30 years ago. That is almost $650 in today’s money.
It appears the 1993 Topps Finest Signature Series complete set consists of 16 cards. From looking at the pictures in the auction the following players are included: David Cone, Barry Larkin, Doc Gooden, Cecil Fielder, Andre Dawson, Will Clark, Nolan Ryan, Dennis Eckersley, Barry Bonds, Frank Thomas, Cal Ripken Jr., Darryl Strawberry, Rickey Henderson, Tom Glavine, and one player I cannot make out.
Do you have any additional information about 1993 Topps Finest Gold Signature Series? What is its approximate value? What is the print run?