1964 Wheaties Pristine Album and Stamps (51)

Bidding

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/3/2025

Presented is a simply outstanding example of one of the great peripheral food issues of the 1960s, the 1964 Wheaties Stamps and the 8 ¼-by-11-inch album that was meant to showcase the stamps. Hard to imagine running across this artifact in a more sensational condition, with the elegant 2 ½-by-2 ¾-inch stamps featuring blazing color images of the players without any graphic elements, photos as sharp and vivid as any that appeared on Topps baseball cards, which, by golly, these did. The six pages of unperforated stamps are easily Near-Mint to Mint, and the elegant 8 ¼-by-11-inch album nearly as good, probably Ex-Mt only because of some of the tiniest of wrinkles. The album cover features spot red and blue ink; inside pages – all 52 of them – are black and white, patiently awaiting the affixing of the appropriate stamps, which it seems likely will never happen. An original mailing envelope now in Fair condition includes a USPS label sending the album and stamps to famed collector Larry Fritsch in Stevens Point, Wis. As noted, the photography is vintage Topps at its finest, with many of the stamp configurations being the same image as used in the regular-issue Topps set from 1963 (or earlier), with the photo sharpness and color intensity apparently even better, possibly from printing on a different white surface. Whatever the explanation, the results are uniformly terrific, from the intimate closeup from Roberto (Don't Call Me Bob) Clemente’s 1961 Topps card to the stunning 1963 Topps photograph of Henry Aaron, easily one of his best cards and so, obviously here, his best stamp. And four dozen more where that came from.