1979 Topps Baseball High-Grade Complete Sets (4)

Bidding

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/6/2015

This is how they looked as they rolled off the presses 36 years ago, cards that are Near-Mint to Mint virtually across the board, jostled only by the constraints of “centering,” leaving the winning bidder with essentially four identical sets with razor-sharp corners, blazing colors and good gloss. In the earlier days of the hobby the lot would have simply been described as “four Mint sets,” but that would have to be qualified by the centering, which seemingly matches, card by card, across all four. These are clearly from vending, with the four keys – No. 55 Stargell, No. 115 Ryan, No. 116 Ozzie Smith and No. 650 Pete Rose – described as Near-Mint only because of 70/30 centering. As noted earlier, with the four sets virtually identical from card to card, there may be between 250-300 cards in each set that might require an “off-center” qualifier. Included in that grouping are a half dozen other keys: No. 24 Molitor, No. 30 Winfield, No. 39 Murphy, No. 42 Eckersley, No. 330 Brett and No. 400 Rice. It’s difficult to imagine another opportunity to pick up four identical and pristine, uncirculated sets from the closing years of Topps’ monopoly in the baseball card business.