Kellogg's Cards - Grading and Cracking

 I purchased these two cards recently.  I don't usually seek out graded cards, but these came in a lot of 30+ cards.  

When graded as 10 by PSA, can I assume that they were not cracked?  What do the grading companies do with cracked Kellogg's cards?

I have no problem with damaged Kellogg's cards, but I don't see them as gradable if they are cracked.   A well-loved, played with card is fine for my collection, but if the entire card is cracked there isn't much to see.

Nothing against the seller here because these cards were shown as cracked in the listing.  The cracks take a lot more of the shine off of the card than I'd expect.  

Does anyone have graded cards that were fine, but now are cracked?  That has not happened to any of mine.

Best Offer Accepted ----- But I Lost Anyway

 This is a new one for me.  I made an offer on a card recently and a counter offer was made.  Before I could accept it the fair offer, someone else bought the card.  Has it happened to you?

It would not be a big deal, except for the fact that it was a one-of-a-kind card.  

After a look at this sheet I feel a bit better.  I have no idea how to bid on stuff like these sheets or other unique items.  Most go beyond my budget.  

The last one is one of those that got away.  I should have bid a lot higher on it, but I don't know what any of this stuff is worth.  I hope that a Clemente collector is enjoying it - 72 Clementes together.

#6 on My List of Favorite Kellogg's Baseball Card Sets

 I keep going back and forth on #6 and #7.  I went with 1978 for #6.  I was busy with sports and I lost touch with my trading group so I didn't see extra cards often that year. 

I did find time to go to the most amazing card shop on Archer Avenue in Chicago - the Sports Collector's Store.  It was run by a few of the biggest names in card collecting.  For those of you who are older, you probably know who they are.  I still see at least one of them around at the big shows.

What I didn't see there, or at least notice, was Kellogg's cards.  Of course I never looked for new cards there.  I probably only purchased cards from 1969 and earlier when I went there.

Back to the 1978s.  I remember getting three Steve Carlton cards in one box of Frosted Flakes that year.  That would be great if I weren't a fan of the Cubs.  

I don't see as many 1978s cracked as I do other years, but there are still a lot of them.  I have a nice collection of cracked Mike Schmidt cards from 1978.  I could use some better ones.  Even one of my unopened Schmidt cards has problems - it is cut short on the right as compared to the card shown below it.  

I do like the card backs - lots of text and stats.  

My first unopened splurge was on 1978 Kellogg's cards.  I bought the entire set in the wrappers and I think that the Schmidt was normal.  With my luck, it is probably cracked too.

I bought another small lot of unopened cards and the card below was one of the first ones I opened since my childhood.  I certainly knew him from card collecting, but when the Cubs and White Sox had night games I always watched the Cubs.  "For all you youngsters out there" (thanks Steve Stone), the Cubs only played National League teams from 1946 - 1996 and before 1946 they only played AL teams in the World Series. 

I like the player selection in 1978 as compared to 1977.  It was a nice step back up to their normal solid checklist.

The Sutter card is one of my favorites.

#7 on My List of Favorite Kellogg's Baseball Card Sets

The top seven sets on my list are difficult to order because I like them all.  The1972 set shows up as #7 but it could easily be in the top three for me.  As a Cub fan, I remember having the Glenn Beckert card since childhood.

I like the unopened packs fro 1972.  They are well constructed and it is easy to see who the player is on the inside.  

I don't see as much curling in the 1972s compared to the other 1970 - 1980 offerings, skipping 1973 where there was no plastic coating and therefore no curling.  

I always liked the layout of the back of these cards.  There are a few variations in this set, but none seem too impossible to find.

As a kid, I had four categories of Kellogg's cards, especially after I started attending cards shows in 1976.

1.  1970 and 1971.  None of my friends had many of these and if they did, they were never offering them in trades.  At shows, I don't remember seeing Kellogg's cards much, but we were too busy looking at cards from the 1960s or older.

2. 1972 and 1973.  Some of the neighborhood kids had them, but there weren't many duplicates floating around.  I had a decent number of 1973s from cereal boxes and a few 1972s.  There seemed possible to get in trades if you were willing to give up Cubs or White Sox cards from your collection.

3.  1974 to 1978.  The core days of me getting them from cereal boxes.  Lots of siblings meant lots of cereal at home.  These also seemed easy to get since a few of the kids had convinced their parents to get them the entire sets through mail-in offers.  

4.  1979 to 1983.  I was still collecting cards during all of these days, but in high school and college I wasn't home enough to snag them from cereal boxes.  I also spent a lot of my money at shows on all of the 1981 - 1983 wax that exploded with the introduction of Fleer and Donruss cards.  

The player select was good, but with only 54 cards, there were a lot more limitations than in the first two years when 75 cards comprised a set.  

This set also has the last Kellogg's regular issue cards of Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays.  I have few memories of watching them play since I was nine during this season. 

#8 on My List of Favorite Kellogg's Baseball Card Sets

1981 saw a big change in the production and distribution of Kellogg's cards.  The cards were issued in the standard baseball card format for the only time in the 1970-1983 timeframe and they didn't issue them in cereal boxes.

I like the player selection.  The bigger, yellow cards really showcase the uniforms of the different teams.  Since Chicago didn't have cable yet, those were still ancient times compared to the exposure of sports today.  

Factory sets from this year were quite easy to come by, and quite affordable, before COVID.  

The card stock is thin and it is quite susceptible to curving.  They seem to curve more often than they crack.  Maybe that is because the coating also seems thinner on these cards.

Kellogg's figured out something with the 2.5 x 3.5-inch cards.  It worked well with the thicker offerings in 1991 and 1992.  Imagine how nice all of the Kellogg's issues would have held up if they used the 1990s technology from 1970 - 1983.

The backs have extensive write-ups.  The backs will be ranked separate someday.

Surprising End to the Year - Two Things I Didn't Expect to Add

A few days ago I happened to be online early in the morning when I noticed a new listing for six 1971 Kellogg's baseball cards.  I quickly purchased the item since five of the cards looked to be in good shape and the sixth one was an unopened pack with Don Sutton inside.

I don't have a want list for unopened 1970 or 1971 Kellogg's baseball cards yet because I have so few of them.  I did get a decent number of 1970 Kellogg's football cards in their original wrappers, but I haven't move forward with those since prices skyrocketed during COVID.

The first five were actually graded and the color looked good.  I took a chance because the pictures weren't great.  Here is what they look like with a scan instead of a camera phone picture.

I hadn't even noticed that these were cards from the Benanti Collection.  I've been trying to find more cards from that former employee (Kellogg's / Xograph?).  I also didn't notice that they were blank back proofs.  I'd be a bit skeptical about the blank backs if they didn't come from this collection.

These cards show the great color that I mentioned I rarely see in 1971s and 1975s.  PSA has only graded 1,046 10s and 4,790 9s for the 1971 set.  That's an average of about 14 per card.  The 1970 Kellogg's set has about five times as many 10s and four times as many 9s.  

For a guy who doesn't really collect graded cards, I've ended up with a few recently.  That's seven 1971s in the last few weeks.  I only had five before that.  It will probably be many years before I get any more of these. 

#9 on My List of Favorite Kellogg's Baseball Card Sets

Happy New Year to all.  I wrote this post on the 30th since I might be busy eating donuts today. 

The color scheme of 1977 is such a drastic shift from other years.  

That alone wouldn't drop it toward the back half of my list.  The player selection also factored into my decision.  Before COVID, this set could be had at a good price and I think that part of that is due to the player selection.

Here is a list of star players NOT in the set - Schmidt, Brock, Gossage, McCovey, Seaver, Jackson, Sutter, Rice, Ryan, Blyleven, Sutton, Simmons, Palmer, Eckersley, P. Niekro, Lynn.

Some of those players weren't included since they were not yet stars, they had a bad year or maybe it was unknown what team they'd be playing for in 1977.  But, there are probably only 20 cards in the set that I would have been happy to pull from a pack in 1977. 

Did any Kellogg's baseball set have a player selection that was worse than this one?  The 1971 football set comes to mind, which is why I ask about the baseball sets.

Like the sets from 1971, 1975 and 1976, the 1977s can look bad if the white border gets dirty / aged.

Campaneris was an under-appreciated player, but we all knew him well from the early 1970s World Series games.