Monday, March 26, 2012

Phun Cards: 1958 Topps #476 Stan Musial All Star

This is the 2nd installment of Phun cards, essentially our variation on Cardboard Appreciation.  

For a long time I ran a feature titled Hall of Fame Thursday, which featured HoF players and people from various sports at various levels.  It was basically baseball centered with a strong Philadelphia accent.  Sometimes the subjects were big names like Steve Carlton other times they were less well known athletes such as Philly Sports HoF member, sprinter Leroy Burrell.

Today we are leaving the Philly area and taking a look at a Phavorite card in the Phungo Collection of Stan Musial
1958 Topps #476 Stan Musial All Star

1958 is the first year that Topps had a subset of All Star cards in the collection.  Which is only one of several reasons this card is special. 
    1) Stan Musial was a first ballot Hall of Famer - 1969
    2) You got to like anybody whose nickname was Stan the Man
    3) This is not nearly Stan Musial rookie cards, but it is his first card issued by Topps (Musial was not issued a base card in 1958)
    4) In my opinion the 58 All Star set is pretty sweet looking. 

For More info on Stan Musial check his Hall of Fame Page 

For the Collector

I challenge you to find a more affordable initail Topps Card of any First Ballot Hall of Famer from the vintage era.  Generally collectors don't value the All Star Subset cards of players as much as the base cards from the same year which controls costs, additionally the Musial Card (along with several other 58 All Star cards) was double printed. 

I am not sure what the above Musial card went for, I suspect around $5 - there is a minor pinhole bottom left, but that isn't enough to bother Team Phungo.

Low recent auction price $3.03 for one that was in slightly rougher condition then mine.  There were 3 auctions that ended under $5.  Fairly nice version of the card came in the $7 - $10 range.  Graded cards topped out at $101.87 (BVG 8.5 NM-MT+)

Phungo Stan Musial HoF Index
1959 Topps #470 (Baseball Thrills - 3000 Hits May 13 1958)  


Sources
1958 Topps All-Star Index

ebay 
Stan the Man
Baseball Hall of Fame
Baseball-Ref
 

1 comment:

topher (Crackin Wax/Varsity Trading Cards) said...

Which publication do you suppose offered the cheaper license to Topps, Sport Magazine or The Sporting News? ;)

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