November 6, 2024: Fall Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/6/2025
Here’s a rarely encountered partial set of the popular 1961 Post Cereal Baseball issue, found here in its coveted form of complete or partial panels, easing some of the concerns typically attributed to relying on the scissoring skills of an earlier generation of American youth. This was General Mills’ first of three important baseball card sets that would ultimately be a significant addition to the classic 1960s Topps mainstream issues. With such a lofty pedigree comes great cachet, with most of the larger or complete panels reasonably cut well outside the card image surfaces. Even with the smaller panels of five, four or three cards, the cutting is well done and rarely intrudes on card edges; the vagaries of more than six decades in storage has left some of the expected issues of small creasing and dirt, with perhaps a dozen cards each reaching Good and Fair condition, and a handful of others deemed Poor. Some of the panels have some extraneous pen or pencil notations, though much of this occurs on the adjacent advertising sections and typically does not intrude on the card configurations. Some of these include the name of the Post Cereal or informal checklisting by the collector. Given the format of panels, there are a total of 213 cards included in the near set, with some obvious duplication, even among Hall of Famers. Overall, it comes out to 16 seven-card panels (complete panels with the advertising section), seven panels of six cards (complete but with some of the advertising section clipped), four with five cards (one partial), nine with four cards (six partials and three with advertising clipped) and one with three cards (complete). Breakdown of keys by panels: Seven-Card Panels: 1) Snider and Bauer (2 – one Snider is Good, 2) Aparicio, 3) Schoendienst and Podres, 4) Skowron (Fair), 5) Bunning (3), 6) Martin and O’Dell (3), 7) Pascual (2) and 8) Pinson; Six-Card Panels: 1) Snider (2), 2) Cash and O’Dell (2), 3) Minoso, and 4) Kluszewski; Five-Card Panels: 1) McDougald and 2) Kuenn; and Four-Card Panels: 1) Snider and Yost and 2) McMillan and Duren. There are a total of 104 cards missing from a complete set, including many of the key Hall of Famers, but even with the AWOL dignitaries, finding so much of a complete set in such a unique, pristine condition because of the uncut panels presents a rare and compelling opportunity for serious collectors.
1961 Post Cereal Baseball Partial Set in Complete or Cut Panels, 10 HOFers (37 Panels, 213 Cards)
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